Little journeys to the homes of great teachers

HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
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Copyright, 1916,
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CONTENTS

MOSES 9

CONFUCIUS 41

PYTHAGORAS 69

PLATO 97

KING ALFRED 123

ERASMUS 149

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON . . . . 183

THOMAS ARNOLD 217

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL . . . . . 245

HYPATIA 269

SAINT BENEDICT . , 293

MARY BAKER EDDY 327

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MOSES

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he

said. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,

I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said, moreover,

unto Moses: Thus shalt thou say unto the children of

Israel, The Lord God of your Fathers, the God of

Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath

sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is

my memorial unto all generations.

— Exodus in: 14, 15

MOSES

OSES was the world's first great
teacher. He is still one of the world's
great teachers. Seven million people
yet look to his laws for special daily
guidance, and more than two hun-
dred millions read his books and
regard them as Holy Writ. And
■' these people as a class are of the
best and most enlightened who live now or who have
ever lived 33 5S

Moses did not teach of a life after this — ^he gives no
hint of immortality — all of his rewards and punish-
ments refer to the present. If there is a heaven for the
good and a hell for the bad, he did not know of them.
^The laws of Moses were designed for the Now and
the Here. Many of them ring true and correct even
today, after all this interval of more than three thou-
sand years. Moses had a good knowledge of physiology,
hygiene, sanitation. He knew the advantages of cleanli-
ness, order, harmony, industry and good habits. He
also knew psychology, or the science of the mind: he
knew the things that influence humanity, the limits of
the average intellect, the plans and methods of govern-
ment that will work and those which will not.
He was practical. He did what was expedient. He
considered the material with which he had to deal, and

11

MOSES

he did what he could and taught that which his people
would and could believe. The Book of Genesis was
plainly written for the child-mind.
The problem that confronted Moses was one of prac-
tical politics, not a question of philosophy or of absolute
or final truth. The laws he put forth were for the
guidance of the people to whom he gave them, and his
precepts were such as they could assimilate.
It were easy to take the writings of Moses as they have
come down to us, translated, re-translated, colored and
tinted with the innocence, ignorance and superstition
of the nations who have kept them alive for thirty-three
centuries, and then compile a list of the mistakes of the
original writer. The writer of these records of dreams
and hopes and guesses, all cemented with stern com-
monsense, has our profound reverence and regard. The
** mistakes ** lie in the minds of the people who, in the
face of the accumulated knowledge of the centuries,
have persisted that things once written were eternally
sufficient 5S 5S

In point of time there is no teacher within many hun-
dred years following him who can be compared with him
in originality and insight.

Moses lived fourteen hundred years before Christ.
The next man after him to devise a complete code of
conduct was Solon, who lived seven hundred years
after. A little later came Zoroaster, then Confucius,
Buddha, Lao-tsze, Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
12

MOSES

— contemporaries, or closely following each other,
their philosophy woven and interwoven by all and each
and each by all.

Moses, however, stands out alone. That he did not
know natural history as did Aristotle, who lived a
thousand years later, is not to his discredit, and to
emphasize the fact were irrelevant.
Back of it all lies the undisputed fact that Moses led a
barbaric people out of captivity and so impressed his
ideals and personality upon them that they endure as
a distinct and peculiar people, even unto this day. He
founded a nation. And chronologically he is the civi-
lized world's first author.

Moses was a soldier, a diplomat, an executive, a writer,
a teacher, a leader, a prophet, a stonecutter. Beside all
these he was a farmer — a workingman, one who when
forty years of age tended flocks and herds for a liveli-
hood. Every phase of the outdoor life of the range was
familiar to him. ^nd the greatness of the man is
revealed in the fact that his plans and aspirations were
so far beyond his achievements that at last he thought
he had failed. Exultant success seems to go with that
which is cheap and transient. All great teachers have,
in their own minds, been failures — they saw so much
further than they were able to travey

13

MOSES

LL ancient chronology falls easily into three
general divisions: the fabulous, the legendary,
and the probable or natural.
J In the understanding of history, psychology
is quite as necessary as philology.

To reject anything that has a flaw in it is quite as bad
as to have that excess of credulity which swallows every-
thing presented.

It is not necessary to throw away the fabulous nor deny
the legendary. But it is certainly not wise to construe
the fabulous as the actual and maintain the legendary
as literally true. Things may be true allegorically and
false literally, and to be able to distinguish the one from
the other, and prize each in its proper place, is the mark
of wisdom.

If, however, we were asked to describe the man Moses
to a jury of sane, sensible, intelligent and unprejudiced
men and women, and show why he is worthy of the
remembrance of mankind, we would have to eliminate
the fabulous, carefully weigh the traditional, and rest
our argument upon records that are fair, sensible and
reasonably free from dispute.

The conclusions of professional retainers, committed
before they begin their so-called investigations to a
literal belief in the fabulous, should be accepted with
great caution. For them to come to conclusions out-
side of that which they have been taught, is not only
to forfeit their social position, but to lose their actual
14

MOSES

means of livelihocKl. Perhaps the truth in the final
summing up can best be gotten from those who have
made no vows that they will not change their opinions,
and have nothing to lose if they fail occasionally to
gibe with the popular.

On a certain occasion after Colonel IngersoU had
delivered his famous lecture entitled, "Some Mistakes
of Moses," he was entertained by a local club. At the
meeting, which was of the usual informal kind known
as "A Dutch Feed," a young lawyer made bold to
address the great orator thus: ** Colonel IngersoU, you
are a lover of freedom — ^with you the word liberty
looms large. All great men love liberty, and no man
lives in history, respected and revered, save as he has
sought to make men free. Moses was a lover of liberty.
Now, would n't it be gracious and generous in you to
give Moses, who in some ways was in the same busi-
ness as yourself, due credit as a liberator and law-
giver and not emphasize his mistakes to the total
exclusion of his virtues? "

Colonel IngersoU listened — ^he was impressed by the
fairness of the question. He listened, paused and
replied: ** Young man, you have asked a reasonable
question, and all you suggest about the greatness of
Moses, in spite of his mistakes, is well taken. The
trouble in your logic lies in the fact that you do not
imderstand my status in this case. You seem to forget
that I am not the attorney for Moses. He has more

15

MOSES

than two million men looking after his interests. I am
retained on the other side! **

Like unto Colonel IngersoU, I am not an attorney for
Moses. I desire, however, to give a fair, clear and
judicial account of the man. I will attempt to present
a brief for the people, and neither prosecute nor defend.
I will simply try to picture the man as he once existed,
nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice.
As the original oflfice of the State's Attorney was
rather to protect the person at the bar than to indict
him, so will I try to bring out the best in Moses,
rather than hold up his mistakes and raise a laugh by
revealing his ignorance. Modesty, which is often ego-
tism turned wrong side out, might here say, ** Oh,
Moses requires no defense at this late day! " But
Moses, like all great men, has suffered at the hands of
his friends. To this man has been attributed powers
which no human being ever possessed.
Moses lived thirty-three hundred years ago. In one
sense thirty-three centuries is a very long time. All is
comparative — children regard a man of fifty as ** awful
old." I have seen several persons who have lived a
hundred years, and they did n't consider a century
long, ** and thirty-five is n't anything," said one of
them to me.

Geologically, thirty-three centuries is only an hour ago.
It does not nearly take us back to the time when men
of the Stone Age hunted the hairy mammoth in what is
16

MOSES

now Nebraska, nor does thirty-three centuries give us
any gHmpse of the time when tropical animals, plants
and probably men lived and flourished at the North
Pole 53 33

Egyptian civilization, at the time of Moses, was more
than three thousand years old. Egypt was then in the
first stage of senility, entering upon her decline, for her
best people had settled in the cities, and this completes
the cycle and spells deterioration. She had passed
through the savage, barbaric, nomadic and agricultural
stages and was living on her unearned increment, a
part of which was Israelitish labor. Moses looked at
the Pyramids, which were built more than a thousand
years before his birth, and asked in wonder about who
built them, very much as we do today. He listened for
the Sphinx to answer, but she was silent, then as now.
The date of the exodus has been fixed as having prob-
ably occurred during the reign of the Great Pharaoh,
Mineptah, or the nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The
date is, say, fourteen hundred years before Christ. An
inscription has recently been found which seems to
show that Joseph settled in Egypt during the reign of
Mineptah, but the best scholars now have gone back
to the conclusions I have stated.

At the time of the Pharaohs, Egypt was the highest
civilized country on earth. It had a vast system of
canals, an organized army, a goodly degree of art, and
there were engineers and builders of much ability.

17

MOSES

Philosophy, poetry and ethics were recognized, prized
and discussed.

The storage of grain by the government to bank against
famine had been practised for several hundred years.
There were also treasure-cities built to guard against
fire, thieves or destruction by the elements. It will
thus be seen that foresight, thrift, caution, wisdom,
played their parts. The Egyptians were not savages.

18

MOSES

BOUT five hundred years before the birth of
Moses there lived in Arabia a powerful Sheik
or Chief, known as Abraham. This man had a
familiar spirit, or guide, or guardian-angel
known as Yaveh or Jehovah. All of the desert tribes
had such tutelary gods ; and all of these gods were once
men of power who lived on earth. The belief in special
gods has often been held by very great men: Socrates
looked to his ** demon *' for guidance; Themistocles
consulted his oracle; a President of the United States
visited a clairvoyant, who consented to act as a medium
and interpret the supernatural. This idea, which is a
variant of ancestor worship, still survives, and very
many good people do not take journeys or make invest-
ments until they believe they are being dictated to by
Shakespeare, Emerson, Beecher or Phillips Brooks.
These people also believe that there are bad spirits to
which we must not harken.

Abraham was led by Jehovah; what Jehovah told him
to do he did ; when Jehovah told him to desist or change
his plans, he obeyed. Jehovah promised him many
things, and some of these promises were fulfilled.
Whether these tutelary gods or controlling spirits had
any actual existence outside of the imagination of the
people who believed in them — whether they were
merely pictures thrown upon the screen by a sub-
conscious spiritual stereopticon — is not the question
now under discussion. Something must be left for a

19

MOSES

later time: the fact remains that special providences
are yet relied upon by sincere and intelligent people.
^ Abraham had a son named Isaac. And Isaac was the
father of Jacob, or Israel, ** the Soldier of God," so
called on account of his successful wrestling with the
angel. And Jacob was the father of twelve sons. All of
these people believed in Jehovah, the god of their tribe;
and while they did not disbelieve in the gods of the
neighboring tribes, they yet doubted their power and
had grave misgivings as to their honesty. Therefore,
they had nothing to do with them, praying to their own
god only and looking to him for support. They were
the chosen people of Jehovah, just as the Babylonians
were the chosen people of Baal; the Canaanites the
chosen people of Ishitar; the Moabites the chosen
people of Chemos; the Ammonites the chosen people
of Rimmon.

Now Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, and his
brethren were naturally jealous of him. So one day
out on the range they sold him into slavery to a passing
caravan, and went home and told their father the boy
was dead, having been killed by a wild beast. To make
the matter plausible they took the coat of Joseph and
smeared it with the blood of a goat which they had
killed. Nowadays, the coat would have been sent to
a chemist's laboratory and the blood-spots tested to
see whether it was the blood of beast or human. But
Jacob believed the story and mourned his son as dead.
20

MOSES

Now Joseph was taken to Egypt and there arose to a
position of influence and power through his intelligence
and diligence. How eventually his brethren, starving,
came to him for food, there being a famine in their
own land, is one of the most natural and beautiful
stories in all literature. It is a folklore legend, free
from the fabulous, and has all the corroborating marks
of the actual.

For us it is history undisputed, unrefuted, because it
is so natural. It could all easily happen in various
parts of the world even now. It shows the identical
traits of human nature that are alive and pulsing today.
^ Joseph having made himself known to his brethren
induced some of them and their neighbors to come
down into Egypt, where the pasturage was better and
the water more sure, and settle there. The Bible tells
us that there were seventy of these settlers and gives
us their names.

These emigrants, called Israelites, or Children of Israel,
account for the presence of the enslaved people whom
Moses led out of captivity three hundred years later.
^ One thing seems quite sure, and that is that they were
a peculiar people then, with the pride of the desert in
their veins, for they stood socially aloof and did not
mix with the Egyptians. They still had their own god
and clung to their own ways and customs.
That very naive account in the first chapter of Exodus
of how they had two midwives, ** and the name of one

21

MOSES

was Shiphrah and the other Puah," is as fine In its
elusive exactitude as an Uncle Remus story. Children
always want to know the names of people. These two
Hebrew midwives were bribed by the King of Egypt
— ruler over twenty million people — in person, to kill
all the Hebrew boy babies. Then the account states
that Jehovah was pleased with these Hebrew women
who proved false to their master, and Jehovah rewarded
them by giving them houses.

This order to kill the Hebrew children must have
gone into execution, if at all, about the time of the
birth of Moses, because Aaron, the brother of Moses,
and three years older, certainly was not killed.
Whether Moses was the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
his father an Israelite, or both of his parents were
Israelites, is problematic. Royal families are not apt
to adopt an unknown waif into the royal household
and bring him up as their royal own, especially if this
waif belongs to what is regarded as an inferior race.
The tie of motherhood is the only one that could over-
rule caste and override prejudice. If the daughter of
Pharaoh, or more properly ** the Pharaoh,** were the
mother of Moses, she had a better reason for hiding
him in the bulrushes than did the daughter of a Levite,
for the order to kill these profitable workers is extremely
doubtful. The strength, skill and ability of the Israelites
formed a valuable acquisition to the Egyptians, and
what they wanted was more Israelites, not fewer.
22

MOSES

Judging from the statement that there were only two
midwives,' there were only a few hundred Israelites —
perhaps between one and two thousand, at most 53
So leaving the legend of the childhood of Moses with
just enough mystery mixed in it to give it a perpetual
piquancy, we learn that he was brought up an Egyptian,
as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and that it was she
who gave him his name.

Philo and Josephus give various sidelights on the life
and character of Moses. The Midrash or Commentaries
on the History of the Jews, composed, added to or
modified by many men, extending over a period of
twenty centuries, also add their weight, even though
the value of these Commentaries is conjectural.
Egyptian accounts of Moses and the Israelites come
to us through Hellenic sources, and very naturally are
not complimentary. These picture Moses, or Osarsiph,
as they call him, as an agitator, an undesirable citizen,
who sought to overturn the government, and failing in
this, fled to the desert with a few hundred outlaws.
They managed to hold out against the forces sent to
capture them, were gradually added to by other refu-
gees, and through the organizing genius of Moses were
rounded into a strong tribe.

That Moses was their supreme ruler, and that to better
hold his people in check he devised a religious ritual for
them, and impressed his god, Jehovah, upon them, al-
most to the exclusion of all other gods, and thus formed

23

MOSES

them into a religious whole, is beyond question. No
matter what the cause of the uprising, or who was to
blame for it, the fact is undisputed that Moses led a
revolt in Egypt, and the people he carried with him in
this exodus formed the nucleus of the Hebrew Nation.
And further, the fact is beyond dispute that the per-
sonality of Moses was the prime cementing factor in
the making of the nation. The power, poise, patience
and unwavering self-reliance of the man, through his
faith in the god Jehovah, are all beyond dispute.
Things happen because the man makes them happen.

f

24

MOSES

HE position of the Israelites in Egypt was one
of voluntary vassalage. The government was
a feudal monarchy. The Israelites had come
into Egypt of their own accord, but had
never been admitted into the full rights of citizenship.^
This exclusion by the Egyptians had no doubt tendea
to fix the Children of Israel in their religious beliefs, and
on the other hand, their proud and exclusive nature
had tended to keep them from a full fellowship with
the actual owners of the land.

The Egyptians never attempted to traffic in them as
they did in slaves of war, being quite content to use
them as clerks, laborers and servants, paying them a
certain wage, and also demanding an excess of labor
in lieu of taxation. In other words, they worked out
their ** road-tax,** which no doubt was excessive. Many
years later, Athens and also Rome had similar **slaves,'*
some of whom were men of great intellect and worth.
If one reads the works of modern economic prophets,
it will be seen that wage-workers in America are often
referred to as ** slaves *' or ** bondmen,'* terms which
will probably give rise to confusion among historians
to come 53 53

Moses was brought up in the court of the king, and
became versed in all the lore of the Egyptians. We are
led to suppose that he also looked like an Egyptian, as
we are told that people seeing him for the first time,
he being a stranger to them, went away and referred

25

MOSES

to him as ** that Egyptian." He was handsome, com-
manding, silent by habit and slow of speech, strong
as a counselor, a safe man. That he was a most valu-
able man in the conduct of Egyptian official affairs,
there is no doubt. And although he was nominally an
Egyptian, living with the Egyptians, adopting their
manners and customs, yet his heart was with ** his
brethren," the Israelites, who he saw were sore
oppressed through governmental exploitation.
Moses knew that a government which does not exist
for the purpose of adding to human happiness has no
excuse for being. And once when he was down among
his own people he saw an Egyptian taskmaster or
foreman striking an Israelitish workman, and in wrath
he arose and killed the oppressor. The only persons
who were witnesses to this affair were two Hebrews.
The second day after the fight, when Moses was
attempting to separate two Hebrews who had
gotten into an altercation with each other, they taunted
him by saying, ** Who gavest thee to be a ruler over
us? — ^wilt thou also kill us as thou didst the Egyptian? "
^This gives us a little light upon the quality and
character of the people with whom Moses had to
deal. It also shows that the ways of the reformer and
peatcemaker are not flower-strewn. The worst enemies
of a reformer are not the Egyptians — he has also to
deal with the Israelites.

I once heard Terence V. Powderly, who organized the
26

MOSES

Knights of Labor — the most successful labor organiza-
tion ever formed — say, **Any man who devotes his
life to helping laboring men will be destroyed by them.*'
And then he added, ** But this should not deter us from
the effort to benefit."

As the Hebrew account plainly states that the killing
of all the male Hebrew children was carried out with
the connivance of Hebrew women who pretended to
be ministering to the Hebrew mothers, so was the
flight of Moses from Egypt caused by the Hebrews,
who turned informants and brought him into disgrace
with Pharaoh, who sought his life.

Very naturally, the Egyptians deny and have always
denied that the order to kill children was ever issued
by a Pharaoh. They also point to the fact that the
Israelites were a source of profit — a valuable asset to
the Egyptians. And moreover, the proposition that
the Egyptians killed the children to avoid trouble is
preposterous, since no possible act that man can com-
mit would so arouse sudden rebellion and fan into
flame the embers of hate as the murder of the young.
If the Egyptians had attempted to carry out any such
savage cruelty, they would not only have had to fight
the Israelitish men, but the outraged mothers as well.
The Egyptians were far too wise to invite the fury of
frenzied motherhood. To have done this would have
destroyed the efficiency of the entire Hebrew popula-
tion. An outraged and heartbroken people do not work.

27

MOSES

^When one person becomes angry with another, his
mental processes work overtime making up a list of
the other's faults and failings.

When a people arise in revolt they straightway prepare
an indictment against the government against which
they revolted, giving a schedule of outrages, insults,
plunderings and oppressions. This is what is politely called
partisan history. ** Uncle Tom's Cabin " was a literary
indictment of the South by featuring its supposed bru-
talities. And the attitude of the South is mirrored in a
pretty parable concerning a Southern girl who came
North on a visit, and seeing in print the words ** damned
Yankee," innocently remarked that she always thought
they were one word. A description of the enemy, made
by a person or a people, must be taken cum grano
Syracuse 53 53

28

MOSES

HEN Moses fled, after killing the Egyptian,
he went northward and east Into the land of
the MIdlanltes, who were also descendants of
Abraham. At this time he was forty years of
age, and still unmarried, his work In the Egyptian Court
having evidently fully absorbed his time.
It Is a pretty little romance, all too brief In Its details, of
how the tired man stopped at a well, and the seven
<laughters of Jethro came to draw water for their flocks.
Certain shepherds came also and drove the girls away,
^when Moses, true to his nature, took the part of the
young ladles, to the chagrin and embarrassment of
the male rustics who had left their manners at home.
The story forms a melodramatic stage-setting which the
mummers have not been slow to use, representing
the seven daughters as a ballet, the shepherds as a
male chorus, and Moses as basso-profundo and hero.
We are told that the girls went home and told their
father of the chivalrous stranger they had met, and he,
with all the deference of the desert, sent for him " that
he might eat bread."

Very naturally Moses married one of the girls.
And Moses tended the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-
law, taking the herds a long distance, living with them
and sleeping out under the stars.

Now Jethro was the chief of his tribe. Moses calls him
a ** priest," but he was a priest only Incidentally, as
all the Arab chiefs were.

29

MOSES

The clergy originated in Egypt. Before the Israelites
were in Goshen, the ** sacra," or sacred utensils, belonged
to the family; and the head of the tribe performed the
religious rites, propitiating the family deity, or else
delegated some one else to do so. This head of the
tribe, or chief, was called a ** Cohen '*; and the man
who assisted him, or whom he delegated, was called
a ** Levi.*' The plan of making a business of being a
** Levi " was borrowed from the Egyptians, who had
men set apart, exclusively, to deal in the mysterious.
Moses calls himself a Levi, or Levite.
After the busy life he had led, Moses could not settle
down to the monotonous existence of a shepherd. It is
probable that then he wrote the Book of Job, the
world's first drama and the oldest book of the Bible.
Moses was full of plans. Very naturally he prayed to
the Israelitish god, and the god barkened unto his
prayer and talked to him.

The silence, the loneliness, the majesty of the moun-
tains, the great stretches of shining sand, the long
peaceful nights, all tend to hallucinations. Sheepmen
are in constant danger of mental aberration. Society
is needed quite as much as solitude.
From talking with God, Moses desired to see Him.
One day, from the burning red of an acacia-tree, the
Lord called to him, ** Moses, Moses! "
And Moses answered, ** Here am I ! "
Moses was a man born to rule — he was a leader of men.
30

MOSES

— and here at middle life the habits of twenty-five years
were suddenly snapped and his occupation gone. He
yearned for his people, and knowing their unhappy lot,
his desire was to lead them out of captivity. He knew
the wrongs the Egyptian government was visiting upon
the Israelites. Rameses the Second was a ruler with
the builder's eczema: always and forever he made
gardens, dug canals, paved roadways, constructed model
tenements, planned palaces, erected colossi. He was
a worker, and he made everybody else work. It was in
this management of infinite detail that Moses had been
engaged; and while he entered into it with zest, he
knew that the hustling habit can be overdone and its
voteiries may become its victims — not only that, but
this strenuous life may turn freemen into serfs, and
serfs into slaves.

And now Rameses was dead, and the proud, vain,
fretful and selfish Mineptah ruled in his place. It was
worse with the Israelites than ever!
The more Moses thought of it the more he was con-
vinced that it was his duty to go back to Egypt and
lead his people out of bondage. He himself, having
been driven out, made the matter a burning one with
him: he had lost his place in the Egyptian Court, but
he would get it back and hold it under better conditions
than ever before!

He heard the ** Voice"! All strong people hear the
Voice calling them. And barkening to the Inner Voice

31

r

MOSES

IS simply doing what you want to do, ^ ** Moses,
Moses!"

And Moses answered, ** Lord, here am I."
The laws of Moses still influence the world, but not
even the orthodox Jews follow them literally. We bring
our reason to bear upon the precepts of Moses, and
those which are not for us we gently pass over. In fact,
the civil laws of most countries prohibit many of the
things which Moses commanded. For instance, the
eighteenth verse of the twenty-second chapter of
Exodus says, ** Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.**
Certainly no Jewish lawyer nor Rabbi, in any part of
the world, advocates the killing of persons supposed to
be witches. We explain that in this instance the inspired
writer lapsed and merely mirrored the ignorance of his
time. Or else we fall back upon the undoubted fact that
various writers and translators have tampered with the
original text — this must be so, since the book written
by Moses makes record of his death.
But when we find passages in Moses requiring us to
benefit our enemies, we say with truth that this was
the first literature to express for us the brotherhood of
man 33 53

** Thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise
and perverteth the words of the righteous.'* Here we
get Twentieth-Century Wisdom. And very many pas-
sages as fine and true can be found, which prove
for us beyond cavil that Moses was right a part of the
32

MOSES

time, and to say this of any man, living or dead, is a
very great compliment.

In times of doubt the Jewish people turn to the Torah,
or Book of 4:he Law. This book has been interpreted by
the Rabbis, or the learned men, and to meet the exi-
gencies of living under many conditions, it has been
changed, enlarged and augmented. In these changes
the people were not consulted. Very naturally it was
done secretly, for inspired men must be well dead
before the many accept their edict. To be alive is
always more or less of an offense, especially if you be
a person and not a personage.

y he murmurings against Moses during his lifetime
often broke into a rumble and a roar. The mob accused
him of taking them out into the wilderness to perish.
To get away from the constant bickering and criticisms
of the little minds, Moses used to go up into the moun-
tains alone to find rest, and there he communicated with
his godjil t was surely a great step in advance when all the
Elohims were combined into one Supreme Elohim that
was everywhere present and ruled the world. Instead
of dozens of little gods, jealous, jangling, fearful, fretful,
fussy, boastful, changing walking-sticks to serpents, or
doing other things quite as useless, it was a great
advance to have one Supreme Being, dispassionate, a
God of Love and Justice, ** with whom can be no varia-
tion, neither shadow that is cast by turning.*/ This
gradual ennobling of the conception of Divinity reveals

33

MOSES

the extent to which man is ennobling his own nature.
^ Up to within a very few years God had a rival in the
Devil, but now the Devil lives only as a pleasantry.
Until the time of Moses, the God of Sinai was only
the God of the Hebrew people, and this accounts for
His violence, wrath, jealousy, and all of those qualities
which went to make up a barbaric chief, including the
tendency of His sons and servants to make love to the
daughters of earth.

It is probable that the idea of God — in opposition to a
god, one of many gods — ^was a thought that grew up
very gradually in the mind of Moses. The ideal grew,
and Moses grew with the ideal.

Then from God being a Spirit, to being Spirit, is a
natural, easy and beautiful evolution.
The thought of angels, devils, heavenly messengers,
like Gabriel and the Holy Ghost, constantly surround-
ing the Throne, is a suggestion that comes from the
court of the absolute monarch. The Trinity is the
oligarchy refined, and the one son who gives himself as a
sacrifice for all the people who have oflFended the
monarch is the retreating vision of that night of igno-
rance when all nations sought to appease the wrath of
their god by the death of human beings.
God to us is Spirit, realized everywhere in unfolding
Nature. We are a. part of Nature — ^we, too, are Spirit.
When Moses commands his people that they must
return the stray animal of their enemy to its rightful
34

MOSES

owner, we behold a great man struggling to benefit
humanity by making them recognize the laws of Spirit.
We are all one family — we can not afford to wrong or
harm even an enemy.

Instead of thousands of warring, jarring families or
tribes, we have now a few strong federations of States,
or countries, which, if they would make war on one
another, would today quickly face a larger foe. Already
the idea of one government for all the world is taking
form — there must be one Supreme Arbiter, and all this
monstrous expense of money and flesh and blood and
throbbing hearts for purposes of war, must go, just as
we have sent to limbo the jangling, jarring, jealous
gods. Also, the better sentiment of the world will send
the czars, emperors, kings, grand dukes, and the greedy
grafters of so-called democracy, into the dust-heap of
oblivion, with all the priestly phantoms that have
obscured the sun and blackened the sky. The gods have
gone, but MAN IS HERE.

35

MOSES

HE plagues that befell the Egyptians were the
natural ones to which Egypt was liable:
drought, flood, flies, lice, frogs, disease. The
Israelites very naturally declared that these
things were sent as a punishment by the Israelitish god.
I remember a farmer, in my childhood days, who was
accounted by his neighbors as an infidel. He was struck
by lightning and instantly killed, while standing in his
doorway. The Sunday before, this man had worked in
the fields, and just before he was killed he had said,
** dammit," or something quite as bad. Our preacher
explained at length that this man's death was a ** judg-
ment." Afterward, when our church was struck by
lightning, it was regarded as an accident.
Ignorant and superstitious people always attribute
special things to special causes. When the grasshoppers
overran Kansas in Eighteen Hundred EWfive. I
heard a good man from the South say it was a punish-
ment on the Kansans for encouraging Old John Brown.
The next year the boll-weevil ruined the cotton crop,
and certain preachers in the North, who thought they
knew, declared it was the lingering wrath of God on
account of slavery. ^ Three nations unite to form our
present civilization. These are the Greek, the Roman
and the Judaic. The lives of Perseus, Romulus and
Moses all teem with the miraculous, but if we accept
the supernatural in one we must in all. Which of these
three great nations has contributed most to our
36

MOSES

well-being is a question largely decided by tempera-
ment; but just now the star of Greece seems to be in
the ascendant. We look to art for solace. Greece stands
for art ; Rome for conquest ; Judea for religion.
And yet Moses was a lover of beauty, and the hold he
had upon his people was quite as much through train-
ing them to work as through his moral teaching. Indeed,
his morality was expediency — which is reason enough
according to modern science. When he wants them to
work, he says, ** Thus saith the Lord," just the same
as when he wishes to impress upon them a thought.
^ No one can read the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh
and twenty-eighth chapters of Exodus without being
impressed with the fact that the man who wrote them
had in him the spirit of the Master Workman — a King's
Craftsman. His carving the ten commandments on
tablets of stone also shows his skill with mallet and
chisel, a talent he had acquired in Egypt, where Rameses
the Second had thousands of men engaged in sculpture
and in making inscriptions in stone.
Several chapters in Exodus might have been penned
by Albrecht Durer or William Morris. The command-
ment, ** Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven
image,*' was unmistakably made merely to correct a
local evil: the tendency to worship the image instead
of the thing it symbolized. People who do not contrib-
ute to the creation of an object fall easy victims to
this error. With all the stern good sense that Moses

37

MOSES

revealed. It is but fair to assume that he did not mean
the command to be perpetual. It was only through
so much moving about that the Jews seemed to lose
their art spirit.

And certainly the flame of art in the Jewish heart hets
never died out, even though at times it has smoldered,
for wherever there has been peace and security for the
Jews, they have not been slow to evolve the talent
which creates. History teems with the names of Jews
who, in music, painting, poetry and sculpture, have
devoted their days to beauty. And the germ of genius
is seen in many of the Jewish children who attend the
manual-training and art schools of America.
Art has its rise in the sense of sublimity. It seems
at times to be a fulfilment of the religious impulse.
The religion which balks at work, stopping at prayer
and contemplation, is a form of arrested development.
^ The number of people in the exodus was probably two
or three thousand. Renan says that one century only
elapsed between the advent of Joseph into Egypt and
the revolt. Very certain it was not a great number that
went forth into the desert. A half-million women could
not have borrowed jewelry of their neighbors — the secret
could not have been kept. And in the negotiations be-
tween Moses and the King, it will be remembered that
Moses asked only for the privilege of going three days*
journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices. It was a
kind of picnic or religious campmeeting. A vast multitude
38

MOSES

could not have taken part in any such exercise. We
also hear of their singing their gratitude on account
of reaching Elim, where there were " twelve springs and
seventy palm-trees.'* Had there been several million
people, as we have been told, the insignificant shade
of seventy trees would have meant nothing to them.
^ The distance from Goshen in Egypt to Canaan in
Palestine was about one hundred seventy-five miles.
But by the circuitous route they traveled it was nearly
a thousand miles. It took forty years to make the
passage, for the way had to be fought through the coun-
try of foes who very naturally sought to block the
way. Quick transportation was out of the question.
The rate of speed was about twenty-five miles a year.
^ Here was a people without homes, or fixed habitation,
beset on every side with the natural dangers of the
desert, and compelled to face the fury of the inhabitants
whose lands they overran, fearful, superstitious, haunted
by hunger, danger and doubt. By night a man sent
ahead with a lantern on a pole led the way; by day a
cavalcade that raised a cloud of dust. One was later
sung by the poets as a pillar of fire, and the other a
cloud. Chance flocks of quail blown by a storm into
their midst were regarded as a miracle; the white
exuding wax of the manna-plant was told of as ** bread **
— or more literally food.

Those who had taken part in the original exodus were
nearly all dead — their children and grandchildren

39

^'.

MOSES

survived, desert born and savage bred. Canaan was not
the land flowing with milk and honey that had been
described. Milk and honey are the results of labor
applied to land. Moses knew this and tried to teach
this great truth. He was true to his divine trust.
Through doubt, hardship, poverty, misunderstanding,
he held high the ideal — they were going to a better place.
^At last, worn by his constant struggle, aged one
hundred twenty, " his eye not dim nor his natural
force abated ** — for only those live long who live well
— Moses went up into the mountain to find solace in
solitude as was his custom. His people waited for him
in vain — he did not return. Alone there with his God
he slept and forgot to awaken. His pilgrimage was done.
**And no man knoweth his grave even unto this day.**
^History is very seldom recorded on the spot — cer-
tainly it was not then. Centuries followed before fact,
tradition, song, legend and folklore were fused into
the form we call Scripture. But out of the fog and
mist of that far-off past there looms in heroic outline
the form and features of a man — a man of will, untiring
activity, great hope, deep love, a faith which at times
faltered, but which never died. Moses was the first
man in history who fought for human rights and
sought to make men free, even from their own limita-
tions. **And there arose not a prophet since Israel like
unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."

40

hf

CONFUCIUS

The highest study of all is that which teaches us to
develop those principles of purity and perfect virtue
which Heaven bestowed upon us at our birth, in order
that we may acquire the power of influencing for good
those amongst whom we are placed, by our precepts
and example; a study without an end — for our labors
cease only when we have become perfect — an unattain-
able goal, but one that we must not the less set before
us from the very first. It is true that we shall not be
able to reach it, but in our struggle toward it we shall
strengthen our characters and give stability to our ideas,
so that, whilst ever advancing calmly in the same direc-
tion, we shall be rendered capable of applying the facul-
ties with which we have been gifted to the best possible

account.

— " The Annals " of Confucius

CONFUCIUS

HE Chinese comprise one-fourth of
the inhabitants of the earth. There
are four hundred milUons of them 53
They can do many things which we
can not do, and we can do a few
things which they have not yet
been able to do ; but they are learn-
ing from us, and possibly we would
do well to learn from them. In China there are now
trolley-cars, telephone-lines, typewriters, cash-registers
and American plumbing. China is a giant awaking from
sleep. He who thinks that China is a country crumbling
into ruins has failed to leave a call at the office and has
overslept.

The West can not longer afford to ignore China. And
not being able to waive her, perhaps the next best
thing is to try to understand her.

The one name that looms large above any other name
in China is Confucius. He of all men has influenced
China most. One- third of the human race love and
cherish his memory, and repeat his words as sacred writ.
^ Confucius was born at a time when one of those tidal
waves of reason swept the world — ^when the nations
were full of unrest, and the mountains of thought were
shaken with discontent.

It was just previous to the blossoming of Greece.

43

CONFUCIUS

Pericles was seventeen years old when Confucius died.
Themistocles was preparing the way for Pericles; for
then was being collected the treasure of Delos, which
made Phidias and the Parthenon possible. During the
life of Confucius lived Leonidas, Miltiades, Cyrus the
Great, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes. And then quite
naturally occurred the battles of Marathon, Salamis
and Thermopylae. Then lived Buddha-Gautama, Lao-
tsze, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Pythagoras,
Pindar, i^schylus and Anacreon.

The Chinese are linked to the past by ties of language
and custom beyond all other nations. They are a
peculiar people, a chosen people, a people set apart.
Just when they withdrew from the rest of mankind
and abandoned their nomadic habits, making them-
selves secure against invasion by building a wall one
hundred feet high, and settled down to lay the founda-
tions of a vast empire, we do not know. Some historians
have fixed the date about ten thousand years before
Christ — let it go at that. There is a reasonably well-
authenticated history of China that runs back twenty-
five hundred years before Christ, while our history
merges into mist seven hundred fifty years before the
Christian era.

The Israelites wandered; the Chinese remained at home.
Walls have this disadvantage: they keep people in as
well as shut the barbarians out. But now there are vast
breaches in the wall, through which the inhabitants
44

CONFUCIUS

ooze, causing men from thousands of miles away to cry
in alarm, ** the Yellow Peril! '* And also through these
breaches, Israelites, Englishmen and Yankees enter
fearlessly, settle down in heathen China, and do business.
^ It surely is an epoch, and what the end will be few
there are who dare forecast.

45

CONFUCIUS

HIS then IS from the pen of Edward Carpenter,
the Church of England curate who was so
great a friend and admirer of our own Walt
Whitman that he made a trip across the sea

to join hands with him in preaching the doctrine of

democracy and the religion of humanity.

In the interior of China, along low-lying plains and
great river-valleys, and by lake-sides, and far away up
into hilly and even mountainous regions.
Behold! an immense population, rooted in the land,
rooted in the clan and the family.

The most productive and stable on the whole Earth.
A garden one might say — a land of rich and recherche
crops, of rice and tea and silk and sugar and cotton
and oranges;

Do you see it? — stretching away endlessly over river-
lines and lakes, and the gentle undulations of the low-
lands, and up the escarpments of the higher hills;
The innumerable patchwork of civilization — the poign-
ant verdure of the young rice; the somber green of
orange-groves; the lines of tea-shrubs, well hoed, and
showing the bare earth beneath ; the pollard mulberries ;
the plots of cotton and maize and wheat and yam and
clover; the little brown and green tiled cottages with
spreading recurbed eaves, the clumps of feathery bam-
boo, or of sugar-canes;

The endless silver threads of irrigation canals and
ditches, skirting the hills for scores and hundreds of
miles, tier above tier, and serpentining down to the
lower slopes and plains —
46

CONFUCIUS

The accumulated result, these, of centuries upon cen-
turies of ingenious industry, and innumerable public
and private benefactions, continued from age to age;
^ The grand canal of the Delta plain extending, a
thronged waterway, for seven hundred miles, with
sails of junks and bankside villages innumerable;
The chain-pumps, worked by buffaloes or men, for
throwing the water up slopes and hillsides, from tier
to tier, from channel to channel ;

The endless rills and cascades flowiAg down again
into pockets and hollows of verdure, and on fields of
steep and plain;

The bits of rock and wildwood left here and there,
with the angles of Buddhist or Jain temples projecting
from among the trees;

The azalea and rhododendron bushes, and the wild
deer and pheasants unharmed;

The sounds of music and the gong — the Sin-fa sung at
eventide — and the air of contentment and peace per-
vading ;

A garden you might call the land, for its wealth of
crops and flowers,
A town almost for its population,

A population denser, on a large scale, than anywhere
else on earth —

Five or six acre holdings, elbowing each other, with
lesser and larger, continuously over immense tracts,
and running to plentiful market centers;
A country of few roads, but of innumerable footpaths
and waterways.

Here, rooted in the land, and rooted in the family, each
family clinging to its portion of ancestral earth, each

47

CONFUCIUS

offshoot of the family desiring nothing so much as to
secure its own patrimonial field,

Each member of the family answerable primarily to
the family assembly for his misdeeds or defalcations,
^ All bound together in the common worship of ances-
tors, and in reverence for the past and its sanctioned
beliefs and accumulated prejudices and superstitions;
^ With many ancient, wise, simple customs and ordi-
nances, coming down from remote centuries, and the
time of Confucius,

This vast population abides — the most stable and the
most productive in the world.

And Government touches it but lightly — can touch it
but lightly.

With its few officials (only some twenty-five thousand
for the whole of its four hundred millions), and its
scanty taxation (about one dollar per head), and with
the extensive administration of justice and affairs by
the clan and the family — little scope is left for govern-
ment 33 5S

The great equalized mass population pursues its even
and accustomed way, nor pays attention to edicts and
foreign treaties, unless these commend themselves
independently ;

Pays readier respect, in such matters, to the edicts and
utterances of its literary men, and the deliberations of
the Academy.

And religious theorizing touches it but lightly — can
touch it but lightly.

Established on the bedrock of actual life, and on the
living unity and community of present, past and future
48

CONFUCIUS

generations. ^ Each man stands bound already, and

by the most powerful ties, to the social body — ^nor needs

the dreams and promises of Heaven to reassure him Si

And all are bound to the Earth.

Rendering back to it as a sacred duty every atom that

the Earth supplies to them (not insensately sending it

in sewers to the sea).

By the way of abject commonsense they have sought

the gates of Paradise — and to found on human soil

their City Celestial !

49

CONFUCIUS

iv;

HE first general knowledge of Confucius came
to the Western jv^rfdjnjthaJatter^pai±ij£jl^
Sixteenth^entury f romjesuk^nussionaries.
Indeed, it was theyjvvho gave hiiiijthe.Latm-'
ized name oF **^X!onfucius," the Chinese name beipg
KungTu-tsze.

So^impressedr'were these missionaries by the greatness
of Confucius that they urged upon the Vatican the
expediency of placing his name upon the calendar of
Saints. They began by combating his teachings, but
this they soon ceased to do, and the modicum of success
which they obtained was through beginning each
Christian service by the hymn which may properly be
called the National Anthem of China. Its opening
stanza is as follows:

Confucius! Confucius!

Great was our Confucius!

Before him there was no Confucius,

Since him there was no other,

Confucius! Confucius!

Great was our Confucius!

The praise given by these early Jesuits to Confucius
was at first regarded at Rome as apology for the
meager success of their ministrations. But later scien-
tific study of Chinese literature corroborated all that
the Jesuit Fathers proclaimed for Confucius, and he
stands today in a class with Socrates and the scant
half-dozen whom we call the saviors of the world.
50

' CONFUCIUS

fl Yet Confucius claimed no ** divine revelation," nor
did he seek to found a religion. I";fc_.was_ simply a
teacher, and what he taught was the science of living —
living in the present, with the plain and simple men
and women who make up the world, and bettering our
condition by bettering theirs. Of a future life he said
he knew nothing, and concerning the supernatural he
was silent, even rebuking his disciples for trying to
pry into the secrets of Heaven. The word ** God "
he does not use, but his recognition of a Supreme
Intelligence is limited to the use of a word which can
best be translated ** Heaven," since it tokens a place
more than it does a person. Constantly he speaks
of " doing the will of Heaven." And then he goes on
to say that ** Heaven is speaking through you," ** Duty
lies in mirroring Heaven in our acts," and many other
such New-Thought aphorisms or epigrams.
That the man was a consummate literary stylist is
beyond doubt. He spoke in parables and maxims,
short, brief and musical. He wrote for his ear, and
always his desire, it seems, was to convey the greatest
truth in the fewest words. The Chinese, even the
lowly and uneducated, know hundreds of Confucian
epigrams, and still repeat them in their daily conver-
sation or in writing, just as educated Englishmen use
the Bible and Shakespeare for symbol.
Minister Wu, in a lecture delivered in various American
cities, compared Confucius with Emerson, showing how

51

CONFUCIUS

in many ways these two great prophets paralleled each
other. Emerson, of all Americans, seems the only man
worthy of being so compared.

The writer who lives is the man who supplies the
world with portable wisdom — short, sharp, pithy
maxims which it can remember, or, better still, which
it can not forget.

Confucius said, ** Every truth has four corners: as a
teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find
the other three.**

The true artist in words or things is always more or less
impressionistic — he talks in parables, and it is for the
hearer to discover the meaning for himself.
An epigram is truth in a capsule. The disadvantage
of the epigram is the temptation it affords to good
people to explain it to the others who are assumed to
be too obtuse to comprehend it alone. And since
explanations seldom explain, the result is a mixture
or compound that has to be spewed utterly or taken
on faith. Confucius is simple enough until he is explained.
Then we evolve sects, denominations and men who make
it their profession to render moral calculi opaque. China,
being peopled by human beings, has suffered from this
tendency to make truth concrete, just as all the rest of
the world has suffered. Truth is fluid and should be
allowed to flow. Ankylosis of a fact is superstition.
Confucius was a free-trader.

52

CONFUCIUS ^

^HINA has always been essentially feudal in
her form of government. China is made up
of a large number of States, each presided
over by a prince or governor, and these

States are held together by a rather loose federal
government, the Emperor being the supreme ruler.
State rights prevail. State may fight with State, or
States may secede — it is n't of much moment. They are
glad enough, after a few years, to get back, like boys
who run away from home, or farmhands who quit work
in a tantrum. The Chinese are very patient — they
know that time cures all things, a truth the West has
not yet learned. States that rebel, like individuals who
place themselves beyond the protection of all, assume
grave responsibilities.

The local prince usually realizes the bearing of the
Social Contract — that he holds his office only during
good behavior, and that his welfare and the welfare of
his people are one.

Heih, the father of Confucius, was governor of one of
these little States, and had impoverished himself in an
effort to help his people. Heih was a man of seventy,
wedded to a girl of seventeen, when their gifted son
was born. When the boy was three years old the
father died, and the lad's care and education depended
entirely on the mother. This mother seems to have
been a woman of rare mental and spiritual worth.
She deliberately chose a life of poverty and honest toil

53

CONFUCIUS

for herself and child, rather than allow herself to be
cared for by rich kinsmen. The boy was brought up
in a village, and he was not allowed to think himself
any better than the other village children, save as he
proved himself so. He worked in the garden, tended
the cattle and goats, mended the pathways, brought
wood and water, and waited on his elders. Every
evening his mother used to tell him of the feats of
strength of his father, of his heroic qualities in friend-
ship, of deeds of valor, of fidelity to trusts, of his
absolute truthfulness, and his desire for knowledge in
order that he might better serve his people.
The coarse, plain fare, the long walks across the fields*
the climbing of trees, the stooping to pull the weeds in
the garden, the daily bath in the brook, all combined to
develop the boy*s body to a splendid degree. He went
to bed at sundown, and at the first flush of dawn was up
that he might see the sunrise. There were devotional
rites performed by the mother and son, morning and
evening, which consisted in the playing upon a lute and
singing or chanting the beauty and beneficence of
creation 5S 53

Confucius, at fifteen, was regarded as a phenomenal
musician, and the neighbors used to gather to hear him
perform. At nineteen he was larger, stronger, comelier,
more skilled, than any other youth of his age in all the
country round.

The simple quality of his duties as a prince can be
54

CONFUCIUS

guessed when we are told that his work as keeper of
the herds required him to ride long distances on horse-
back to settle difficulties between rival herders. The
range belonged to the State, and the owners of goats,
sheep and cattle were in continual controversies.
Montana and Colorado will understand this matter.
Confucius summoned the disputants and talked to
them long about the absurdity of quarreling and the
necessity of getting together in complete understanding.
Then it was that he first put forth his best-known
maxim: ** You should not do to others that which you
would not have others do to you."
This negative statement of the Golden Rule is found
expressed in various ways in the writings of Confucius.
/A literal interpretation of the Chinese language is quite
impossible, as the Chinese have single signs or symbols
that express a complete idea. To state the same matter,
we often use a whole pagef

Confucius had a single word which expressed the
Golden Rule in such a poetic way that it is almost
useless to try to convey it to people of the West.
This word, which has been written into English as
" Shu," means: My heart responds to yours, or my
heart's desire is to meet your heart's desire, or I wish
to do to you even as I would be done by. This sign,
symbol or word Confucius used to carve in the bark of
trees by the roadside. The French were filled with a like
impulse when they cut the words Liberty, Fraternity,

55

CONFUCIUS

Equality, over the entrances to all public buildings.
^ Confucius had his symbol of love and friendship
painted on a board, which he stuck into the ground
before the tent where he lodged; and finally it was
worked upon a flag by some friends and presented to
him, and became his flag of peace.
His success in keeping down strife among the herders,
and making peace among his people, soon gave him a
fame beyond the borders of his own State. As a judge
he had the power to show both parties where they were
wrong, and arranged for them a common meeting-
ground 53 53

His qualifications as an arbiter were not, however,
limited to his powers of persuasion — ^he could shoot an
arrow farther and hurl a spear with more accuracy than
any man he ever met. Very naturally there are a great
number of folklore stories concerning his prowess, some
of which make him out a sort of combination Saint
George and William Tell, with the added kingly graces
of Alfred the Great. Omitting the incredible, we are
willing to believe that this man had a giant's strength,
but was great enough not to use it like a giant.
We are willing to believe that when attacked by
robbers, he engaged them in conversation and that,
seated on the grass, he convinced them they were in
a bad business. Also, he did not later hang them, as did
our old friend Julius Caesar under like conditions.
When twenty-seven he ceased going abroad to hold
56

CONFUCIUS

court and settle quarrels, but sending for the dispu-
tants, they came, and he gave them a course of lectures
in ethics. In a week, by a daily lesson of an hour's
length, they were usually convinced that to quarrel is
very foolish, since it reduces bodily vigor, scatters the
mind, and disturbs the secretions, so the man is the
loser in many ways.

This seems to us like a very queer way to hold court,
but Confucius maintained that men should learn to
govern their tempers, do equity, and thus be able to
settle their own disputes, and this without violence.
** To fight decides who is the stronger, the younger/
and the more skilful in the use of arms, but it does not
decide who is right. That is to be settled by the Heaven
in your own heart.*'

To let the Heaven into your heart, to cultivate a con- ^
science so sensitive that it can conceive the rights of |
the other man, is to know wisdom.
To decide specific cases for others he thought was to
cause them to lose the power of deciding for them-
selves. When asked what a just man should do when he
was dealing with one absolutely unjust, he said, ** He [
who wrongs himself sows in his own heart nettles." 58 j
And when some of his disciples, after the Socratic
method, asked him how this helped the injured man,
he replied, ** Tg^ej^obbedjoi^wroriged^
you continue to remember it." When pushed still
nirther^he said, '^ metn should fight, only when he does
~~ 57

CONFUCIUS

so Jta^rotectJiiniself or his family from bodily harm."
^ Here a questioner asked, If we are to protect our
persons, must we not learn to fight? "
And the einswer comes, ** The just man, he who par-
takes moderately of all good things, is the only man to
fear in a quarrel, for he is without fear."
Over and over is the injunction in varying phrase.
Abolish fear — abolish fear! " When pressed to give in
one word the secret of a happy life, he gives a word
which we translate, ** Equanimity."

»

CONFUCIUS

HE mother of Confucius died during his early
manhood. For her he ever retained the most
devout memories.
L Before going on a journey he always visited
her grave, and on returning, before he spoke to any one,
he did the same. On each anniversary of her death he
ate no food and was not to be seen by his pupils. This
filial piety, which is sometimes crudely and coarsely
called ** ancestor worship,** is something which for the
Western world is rather difficult to appreciate. But in
it there is a subtle, spiritual significance, suggesting
that it is only through our parents that we are able to
realize consciousness or personal contact with Heaven.
These parents loved us into being, cared for us with
infinite patience in infancy, taught us in youth, watched
with high hope our budding manhood; and as reward
and recognition for the service rendered us, the least we
can do is to remember them in all our prayers and
devotions. The will of Heaven used these parents for
us, therefore parenthood is divine.
That this ancestor worship is beautiful and beneficial
is quite apparent, and rightly understood no one could
think of it as ** heathendom.** Confucius used to chant
the praises of his mother, who brought him up in
poverty, thus giving a close and intimate knowledge
of a thousand things from which princes, used to ease
and luxury, are barred.

So close was he to nature and the plain people that

59

CONFUCIUS

he ordered that all skilful charioteers in his employ
should belong to the nobility. This giving a title or
degree to men of skill — men who can do things — ^we
regard as essentially a modern idea.
China, I believe, is the first country in the world to
use the threads of a moth or worm for fabrics. The
patience and care and inventive skill required in first
making silk were very great. But it gives us an index
to invention when we hear that Confucius regarded
the making of linen, using the fiber of a plant, as a
greater feat than utilizing the strands made by the silk-
worm. Confucius had a sort of tender sentiment toward
the moth, similar to the sentiments which our vege-
tarian friends have toward killing animals for food.
Confucius wore linen in preference to silk, for senti-
mental reasons. The silkworm dies at his task of
making himself a cocoon, so to evolve in a winged
joy, but falls a victim of man's cupidity. Likewise,
Confucius would not drink milk from a cow until her
calf was weaned, because to do so were taking an
unfair advantage of the maternal instincts of the cow.
It will thus be seen that Confucius had a very fair hold
on the modern idea which we call ** Monism,'* or *' The
One.'* He, too, said, **A11 is one." In his attitude
toward all living things he was ever gentle and con-
siderate 53 5S

No other prophet so much resembles Confucius in
doctrine as Socrates. But Confucius does not suffer
60

CONFUCIUS

from the comparison. He had a beauty, dignity and
grace of person which the great Athenian did not pos-
sess. Socrates was more or less of a buffoon, and to many
in Athens he was a huge joke — a town fool. Confucius
combined the learning and graces of Plato with the
sturdy, practical commonsense of Socrates. No one
ever affronted or insulted him; many didjigt under-
stand him, but he met prince or pauper jm terms of
equality 5S S&
^Tn his travels Confucius used often to meet recluses
or monks — men who had fled the world in order to
become saints. For these men Confucius had more pity
thein respect. ** The world's work is difficult, and to
live in a world of living, striving and dying men and
women requires great courage and great love. Now we
cein not all run away, and for some to flee from humanity
and to find solace in solitude is only another name for
weakness.** 53 S&

This sounds singularly like our Ralph Waldo who says,
"It is easy in the world to live after the world*s
opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after our own;
but the Great Man is he who in the midst of the crowd
keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of soli-
tude.** 33 33
Confucius is the^rstjnanmjQint_o£-time4:e^ proclaim ]

the divinity-frf-«HivyirH^ -t4^^>^4^n<'1nm1innrl--f^£-J3aaji^_^1i i

the truth that in-^JtsefuLwQrk th€fe-4s"na4tighrnDriow j
degree. In talking to a group of young men he says:
^ ^ 61

CONFUCIUS

" When I was keeper of the herds I always saw to it
that all of my cattle were strong, healthy and growing,
that there was water in abundance and plenty of feed.
When I had charge of the public granaries I never
slept until I knew that all was secure and cared for
against the weather, and my accounts as true and cor-
rect as if I were going on my long journey to return
no more. My advice is to slight nothing, forget nothing,
never leave things to chance, nor say, * Nobody will
know — this is good enough.* **

In all of his injunctions Confucius never has anything
in mind beyond the present life. Of a future existence
he knows nothing, and he seems to regard it as a waste
of energy and a sign of weakness to live in two worlds
at a time. ** Heaven provides us means of knowing all
about what is best here, and supplies us in abundance
every material thing for present happiness, and it is
our business to realize, to know, to enjoy."
He taught rhetoric, mathematics, economics, the
science of government and natural history. And always
and forever running through the fabric of his teaching
/Was the silken thread of ethics — man's duty to man,
man's duty to Heaven. Music was to him a necessity,
since ** it brings the mind in right accord with the will
of Heaven." Before he began to speak he played softly
on a stringed instrument which perhaps would compare
best with our guitar, but it was much smaller, and this
instrument he always carried with him, suspended from
62

CONFUCIUS

his shoulder by a silken sash. Yet with all of his passion
for music, he cautioned his disciples against using it as
an end. It was merely valuable as an introduction to
be used in attuning the mind and heart to an under-
standing of great truth.

Confucius was seventy-two years old at his death.
During his life his popularity was not great. When
he passed away his followers numbered only about
three thousand persons, and his ** disciples," or the
teachers who taught his philosophy, were seventy in
number S& 5S

There is no reason to suppose that Confucius assumed
that a vast number of people would ever ponder his
words or regard him as a prophet.
At the time that Confucius lived, also lived Lao-tsze.
As a youth Confucius visited Lao-tsze, who was then
an old man. Confucius often quotes his great contem-
porary and calls himself a follower of Lao-tsze. The
difference, however, between the men is marked. Lao-
tsze's teachings are full of metaphysics and strange
and mystical curiosities, while Confucius is always
simple, lucid and practical.

63

CONFUCIUS

ONFUCIUS has been revered for twenty
centuries, revered simply as a man, not as a.
god or as a divinely appointed savior. He
offered no reward of heaven, nor did he
threaten non-believers with hell. He claimed no special
influence nor relationship to the Unseen. In all his
teachings he was singularly open, frank and free from
all mystery or concealment. In reference to the super-
natural he was an agnostic. He often said, ** I do not
know.** He was always an inquirer, always a student,
always open to conviction. History affords no instance
of another individual who has been so well and so long
loved, who still holds his place, and who, so far as his
reasoning went, is unassailed and unassailable. Even the
two other great religions in China that rival Confucian-
ism— Buddhism and Taoism (the religion of Lao-tsze)
— do not renounce Confucius: they merely seek to
amend and augment him.

During his lifetime Confucius made many enemies by
his habit of frankly pointing out the foibles of society
and the wrongs visited upon the people by officials who
pretended to serve them. Of hypocrisy, selfishness,
vanity, pretense, he was severe in his denunciation.
^ Politicians at that time had the very modern habit
of securing the office and then leaving all the details
of the work to menials, they themselves pocketing
the perquisites. As Minister of State, Confucius
made himself both feared and detested on account of
64

CONFUCIUS

his habit of summoning the head of the office before
him and questioning him concerning his duties. In fact,
this insistence that those paid by the State should work
for the State caused a combination to be formed against
him, which finally brought about his deposition and
exile, two things which troubled him but little, since one
gave him leisure and the other opportunity for travel.
^ The personal followers of Confucius did not belong
to the best society; but immediately after his death,
many who during his life had scorned the man made
haste to profess his philosophy and decorate their
houses with his maxims. Humanity is about the same,
whether white or yellow, the round world over, and
time modifies it but little. It will be recalled how John
P. Altgeld was feared and hated by both press and pul-
pit, especially in the State and city he served. But rigor
mortis had scarcely seized upon that slight and tired
body before the newspapers that had disparaged the
man worst were vying with one another in glowing
eulogies and warm testimonials to his honesty, sin-
cerity, purity of motive and deep insight. A personality
which can neither be bribed, bought, coerced, flattered
nor cajoled is always regarded by the many — especially
by the party in power — as ** dangerous." Vice, masked
as virtue, breathes easier when the honest man is
safely under the sod.

The plain and simple style of Confucius* teaching can be
gathered by the following sayings, selected at random

65

CONFUCIUS

from the canonical books of Confucianism, consisting of
the teachings of the great master which were gathered
together and grouped by his disciples and followers
after his death:

The men of old spoke little. It would be well to imitate
them, for those who talk much are sure to say something
it would be better to have left unsaid.

Let a man's labor be proportioned to his ^ needs. For
he who works beyond his strength does but sidcl to his

j cares and disappointments. A man should be moderate

jeven in his efforts.

Be not over-anxious to obtain relaxation or repose.
For he who is so, will get neither.

Beware of ever doing that which you are likely, sooner
or later, to repent of having done.

Do not neglect to rectify an evil because it may seem
small, for, though small at first, it may continue to
grow until it overwhelms you.

As riches adorn a house, so does an expanded mind
adorn and tranquillize the body. Hence it is that the
superior man will seek to establish his motives on
correct principles.

The cultivator of the soil may have his fill of good
things, but the cultivator of the mind will enjoy a
continual feast.

66

CONFUCIUS

It is because men are prone to be partial toward those
they love, unjust toward those they hate, servile
toward those above them, arrogant to those below
them, and either harsh or over-indulgent to those in
poverty and distress, that it is so difficult to find any
one capable of exercising a sound judgment with
respect to the qualities of others.

He who is incapable of regulating his own family
can not be capable of ruling a nation. The superior man
will find within the limits of his own home, a suffi-
cient sphere for the exercise of all those principles upon
which good government depends. How, indeed, can it
be otherwise, when filial piety is that which should
regulate the conduct of a people toward their prince;
fraternal affection, that which should regulate the
relations which should exist between equals, and the
conduct of inferiors toward those above them; and
paternal kindness, that which should regulate the bear-
ing of those in authority toward those over whom
they are placed?

IBe slow in speech, but prompt in action.

He whose principles are thoroughly established will
not be easily led from the right path.

The cautious are generally to be found on the right side.

By speaking when we ought to keep silence, we waste
our words.

If you would escape vexation, reprove yourself liberally
and others sparingly.

67

CONFUCIUS

There is no use attempting to help those who can not
help themselves.

I Make friends with the upright, intelligent and wise;
lavoid the licentious, talkative and vain.

Disputation often breeds hatred.

Nourish good principles with the same care that a
mother would bestow on her newborn babe. You may
not be able to bring them to maturity, but you will
nevertheless be not far from doing so.

I The decrees of Heaven are not immutable, for though
] a throne may be gained by virtue, it may be lost by vice.

There are five good principles of action to be adopted:
To benefit others without being lavish; to encourage
labor without being harsh; to add to your resources
without being covetous; to be dignified without being
supercilious; and to inspire awe without being austere.
Also, we should not search for love or demand it, but
so live that it will flow to us.

Personal character can only be established on fixed
principles, for if the mind be allowed to be agitated by
violent emotions, to be excited by fear, or unduly
moved by the love of pleasure, it will be impossible
for it to be made perfect. A man must reason calmly,
for without reason he would look and not see, listen
and not hear.

When a man has been helped around one corner of a
square, and can not manage by himself to get around
the other three, he is unworthy of further assistance/
68

PYTHAGORAS

Consult and deliberate before you act, that thou mayest

not commit foolish actions. For *t is the part of a

miserable man to speak and to act without reflection.

But do that which will not afHict thee afterwards, nor

oblige thee to repentance.

— Pythagoras

X

PYTHAGORAS

PYTHAGORAS

ITH no desire to deprive Mr. Bok
of his bread, I wish to call attention
to Pythagoras, who lived a little
more than five hundred years before
Christ 53 Si

Even at that time the world was
old. Memphis, which was built four
thousand years ago, had begun to
crumble into ruins. Troy was buried deep in the dust
which an American citizen of German birth was to
remove. Nineveh and Babylon were dying the death
that success always brings, and the star of empire was
preparing to westward wend its way.
Pythagoras ushered in the Golden Age of Greece.
All the great writers whom he immediately preceded,
quote him and refer to him. Some admire him; others
are loftily critical; most of them are a Httle jealous;
and a few use him as a horrible example, calling him
a poseur, a pedant, a learned sleight-of-hand man, a
bag of books.

Trial by newspaper was not invented in the time of
Pythagoras; but personal vilification has been popular
since Balaam talked gossip with his vis-a-vis.
Anaxagoras, who gave up his wealth to the State that
he might be free, and who was the teacher of Pericles,
was a pupil of Pythagoras, and used often to mention

71

PYTHAGORAS

him 58 In this way Pericles was impressed by the
Pythagorean philosophy, and very often quotes it in his
speeches. Socrates gave Pythagoras as an authority
on the simple life, and stated that he was willing to
follow him in anything save his injunction to keep
silence. Socrates wanted silence optional; whereas
Pythagoras required each of his pupils to live for a year
without once asking a question or making an explana-
tion. In aggravated cases he made the limit five years.
fl In many ways Pythagoras reminds us of our friend
Muldoon, both being beneficent autocrats, and both
/proving their sincerity by taking their own medicine.
(Pythagoras said, ** I will never ask another to do what
I have not done, and am not willing to do myself.*^
To this end he was once challenged by his three nun-
dred pupils to remain silent for a year. He accepted
the defi, not once defending himself from the criticisms
and accusations that were rained upon him, not once
complaining, nor issuing an order. Tradition has it,
however, that he made averages good later on, when
V the year of expiation was ended.

There are two reasonably complete lives of Pythagoras,
one by Diogenes Laertius, and another by lamblichus.
Personally, I prefer the latter) M lamblichus, as might
be inferred from his name, makes Pythagoras a descend-
ant of i^neas, who was a son of Neptune. This is
surely better than the abrupt and somewhat sensational
statement to the effect that his father was Apollo.
72

PYTHAGORAS

HE birthplace of Pythagoras was Samos, an j^
isle of Greece. He was born of wealthy but
honest parents, who were much in love with
each other — a requisite, says Pythagoras, for
parentage on its highest plane. It is probable that
Pythagoras was absolutely correct in his hypothesis 53
That he was a very noble specimen of manhood —
physically and mentally — there is no doubt. He was
tall, lithe, dignified, commanding and silent by nature,
realizing fully that a handsome man can never talk as
well as he looks. V H

He was quite aware of his physical graces, and in
following up the facts of his early life, he makes the
statement that his father was a sea-captain and trader.

^^JHe then incidentally adds that the best results are
obtained for posterity where a man is absent from his
family eleven months in the year. This is an axiom
agreed upon by many modern philosophers, few of

^V whom, however, live up to their ideals. Aristophanes,
who was on friendly terms with some of the disciples
of Pythagoras, suggested in one of his plays that the
Pythagorean domestic time-limit should be increased
at least a month for the good of all concerned.

j) ^jrPlato, Xenophon and Aristotle make frequent refer-
ences to Pythagoras. In order to impress men like these,
the man must have taught a very exalted philosophy. In
truth, Pythagoras was a teacher of teachers. And like
all men who make a business of wisdom he sometimes

73

PYTHAGORAS

came tardy off, and indulged in a welter of words that
wrecked the original idea — if there were one.
There are these three: Knowledge, Learning, Wisdom.
And the world has until very recent times assumed
that they were practically one and the same thing,
psj^ Knowledge consists of the things we know, not the
things we believe or the things we assume. Knowledge
is a personal matter of intuition, confirmed by experi-
ence. Learning consists largely of the things we mem-
orize and are told by persons or books. Tomlinson of
Berkeley Square was a learned man. When we think
of a learned man, we picture him as one seated in a
library surrounded by tomes that top the shelves.
Wisdom is the distilled essence of what we have
learned from experience. It is that which helps us to
live, work, love and make life worth living for all
we meet. Men may be very learned, and still be far
from wise.

Pythagoras was one of those strange beings who are
bom with a desire to know, and who finally compre-
hending the secret of the Sphinx, that there is really
nothing to say, insist on saying it. That is, vast learning
is augmented by a structure of words, and on this is
built a theogony. Practically he was a priest.
Worked into all priestly philosophies are nuggets of
wisdom that shine like stars in the darkness and lead
men on and on.
\ All great religions have these periods of sanity, otherwise
"^ 74

PYTHAGORAS

they would have no followers at all. The followers,
understanding little bits of this and that, hope finally
to understand it all. Inwardly the initiates at the
shrine of their own conscience know that they know
nothing. When they teach others they are obliged to
pretend that they, themselves, fully comprehend the
import of what they are saying. The novitiate attrib-
utes his lack of perception to his own stupidity, and
many great teachers encourage this view.
** Be patient, and you shall some day know," they say,
and smile frigidly.

And when credulity threatens to balk and go no further,
magic comes to the rescue and the domain of Hermann
and Kellar is poached upon.

Mystery and miracle were born in Egypt. It was there
that a system was evolved, backed up by the ruler, of
religious fraud so colossal that modern deception looks
like the bungling efforts of an amateur. The govern-
ment, the army, the taxing power of the State, were
sworn to protect gigantic safes in which was hoarded
— ^nothing. That is to say, nothing but the pretense
upon which cupidity and self-hypnotized credulity
battened and fattened:

All institutions which through mummery, strange acts,
dress and ritual, affect to know and impart the inmost
secrets of creation and ultimate destiny, had their rise
in Egypt. In Egypt now are only graves, tombs,
necropolises and silence. The priests there need no

75

PYTHAGORAS

soldiery to keep their secrets safe. Ammon-Ra, who
once ruled the universe, being finally exorcised by
Yaveh, is now as dead as the mummies who once
were men and upheld his undisputed sway.

76

PYTHAGORAS

HE Egyptians guarded their mysteries with

jealous dread.

We know their secret now. It is this — there
_J are no mysteries.
That Is the only secret upon which any secret society
holds a caveat. Wisdom can not be corraled with gib-
berish and fettered in jargon. Knowledge is one thing —
palaver another. The Greek-letter societies of our callow
days still survive in bird's-eye, and next to these come
the Elks, who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a
rare good joke, save that brotherhood and good-fellow-
ship are actually a saving salt which excuses much that
would otherwise be simply silly.

All this mystery and mysticism was once official, and
later, on being discarded by the authorities, was con-
tinued by the students as a kind of prank.
Greek-letter societies are the rudimentary survivals of
what was once an integral part of every college. Making
dead languages optional was the last convulsive kick
of the cadaver.

And now a good many colleges are placing the seal
of their disapproval on secret societies among the
students; and the day is near when the secret society
will not be tolerated, either directly or indirectly, as a
part of the education of youth. All this because the
sophomoric mind is prone to take its Greek-letter
mysteries seriously, and regard the college curriculum
as a joke of the faculty,

77

PYTHAGORAS

If knowledge were to be gained by riding a goat, any
petty crossroads, with its lodge-room over the grocery,
would contain a Herbert Spencer; and the agrarian
mossbacks would have wisdom by the scruff and detain
knowledge with a tail-hold.

There can be no secrets in life and morals, because
Nature has so provided that every beautiful thought
you know and every precious sentiment you feel, shall
shine out of your face so that all who are great enough
may see, know, understand, appreciate and appropri-
ate. You can keep things only by giving them away.

78

PYTHAGORAS

HEN Pythagoras was only four or five years
old, his mother taught him to take his morn-
ing bath in the cold stream, and dry his baby
skin by running in the wind. As he ran, she
ran with him, and together they sang a hymn to the
rising sun, that for them represented the god Apollo.
^This mother taught him to be indifferent to cold,
heat, hunger, to exult in endurance, and to take a joy in
the glow of the body.

So the boy grew strong and handsome, and proud;
and perhaps it was in those early years, from the
mother herself, that he gathered the idea, afterward
developed, that Apollo had appeared to his mother,
and so great was the beauty of the god that the woman
was actually overcome, it being the first god at which
she had ever had a good look.

The ambition of a great mother centers on her son,
Pythagoras was filled with the thought that he W2is
different, peculiar, set apart to teach the human race.
^ Having compassed all there was to learn in his native
place, and, as he thought, being ill appreciated, he
started for Egypt, the land of learning. The fallacy that
knowledge was a secret to be gained by word of mouth
and to be gotten from books existed then as now. The
mother of Pythagoras wanted her son to comprehend
the innermost secrets of the Egyptian mysteries. He
would then know all. To this end she sold her jewels, in
order that her son might have the advantages of an

79

PYTHAGORAS

Egyptian education. ^ Women were not allowed to
know the divine secrets — only just a few little ones.
This woman wanted to know, and she said her son
would learn, and tell her.

The family had become fairly rich by this time, and
influential. Letters were gotten from the great ones of
Samos to the Secretary of State in Egypt. And so**"
Pythagoras, aged twenty, ** the youth with the beauti-
ful hair,*' went on his journey to Egypt and knocked
boldly at the doors of the temples at Memphis, where
knowledge was supposed to be in stock. Religion then
monopolized all schools and continued to do so for
quite some time after Pythagoras was dead.
He was turned away with the explanation that no
foreigner could enter the sacred portals — that the
initiates must be those born in the shadows of the
temples and nurtured in the faith from infancy by
holy virgins.

Pythagoras still insisted, and it was probably then that
he found a sponsor who made for him the claim that
he was a son of Apollo. And the holy men peeped out
of their peep-holes in holy admiration for any one who
could concoct as big a lie as they themselves had ever
invented 33 3S

The boy surely looked the part. Perhaps, at last, here
was one who was what they pretended to be! Frauds
believe in frauds, and rogues are more easily captured
by roguery than are honest men.
80

PYTHAGORAS

His admittance to the university became a matter of
international diplomacy. At last, being too hard-pressed,
the wise ones who ran the mystery monopoly gave in,
and Pythagoras was informed that at midnight of a
certain night, he should present himself, naked, at the
door of a certain temple and he would be admitted.
flOn the stroke of the hour, at the appointed time,
Pythagoras, the youth with the beautiful hair, W2is
there, clothed only in his beautiful hair. He knocked
on the great, bronze doors, but the only answer was a
faint, hollow echo.

Then he got a stone and pounded, but still no answer.
^ The wind sprang up fresh and cold. The young man
was chilled to the bone, but still he pounded and then
called aloud demanding admittance. His answer now
was the growling and barking of dogs, within. Still he
pounded! After an interval a hoarse voice called out
through a little slide, ordering him to be gone or the
dogs would be turned loose upon him.
He demanded admittance.

** Fool, do you not know that the law says these doors
shall admit no one except at sunrise? "
** I only know that I was told to be here at midnight
and I would be admitted."

"All that may be true, but you were not told when you
would be admitted — ^wait, it is the will of the gods."
So Pythagoras waited, numbed and nearly dead 3S
The dogs which he had heard had, in some way,

81

PYTHAGORAS

gotten out, and came tearing around the comer of the
great stone building. He fought them with desperate
strength. The effort seemed to warm his blood, and
whereas before he was about to retreat to his lodgings
he now remained.

The day broke in the east, and gangs of slaves went
by to work. They jeered at him and pelted him with
pebbles 53 3S

Suddenly across the desert sands he saw the faint pink
rim of the rising sun. On the instant the big bronze
doors against which he was leaning swung suddenly
in. He fell with them, and coarse, rough hands seized
his hair and pulled him into the hall.
The doors swung to and closed with a clang. Pythagoras
was in dense darkness, lying on the stone floor.
A voice, seemingly coming from afar, demanded, "Do
you still wish to go on? **
And his answer was, ** I desire to go on."
A black-robed figure, wearing a mask, then appeared
with a flickering light, and Pythagoras was led into a
stone cell.

His head was shaved, and he was given a coarse robe
and then left alone. Toward the end of the day he was
given a piece of black bread and a bowl of water. This
he was told was to fortify him for the ordeal to come.
^ What that ordeal was we can only guess, save that
it consisted partially in running over hot sands where
he sank to his waist. At a point where he seemed about
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PYTHAGORAS

to perish a voice called loudly, ** Do you yet desire to
go on?

And his answer was, ** I desire to go on."
Returning to the inmost temple he was told to enter
a certain door and wait therein. He was then blind-
folded and when he opened the door to enter, he walked
off into space and fell into a pool of ice-cold water 53
While floundering there the voice again called, ** Do
you yet desire to go on? **
And his answer was, ** I desire to go on."
At another time he was tied upon the back of a donkey
and the donkey was led along a rocky precipice, where
lights danced and flickered a thousand feet below.
** Do you yet want to go on? " called the voice.
And Pythagoras answered, ** I desire to go on."
The priests here pushed the donkey off the precipice,
which proved to be only about two feet high, the gulf
below being an illusion arranged with the aid of lights
that shone through apertures in the wall.
These pleasing little diversions Pythagoras afterward
introduced into the college which he founded, so to
teach the merry freshmen that nothing, at the last,
was as bad as it seemed, and that most dangers are
simply illusions.

The Egyptians grew to have such regard for Py thagorets
that he was given every opportunity to know the inmost
secrets of the mysteries. He said he encompassed them
all, save those alone which were incomprehensible.

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PYTHAGORAS

This was probably true. ^The years spent in Egypt
were not wasted — ^he learned astronomy, mathematics,
and psychology, a thing then not named, but pretty
well understood — the management of men.
It was twenty years before Pythagoras returned to
Samos. His mother was dead, so she passed away in
ignorance of the secrets of the gods-which perhaps
was just as well.

Samos now treated Pythagoras with great honor 38
Crowds flocked to his lectures, presents were given
him, royalty paid him profound obeisance.
But Samos soon tired of Pythagoras. He was too
austere, too severe; and when he began to rebuke the
officials for their sloth and indifference, he was invited
to go elsewhere and teach his science of life. And so
he journeyed into Southern Italy, and at Crotona built
his Temple to the Muses and founded the Pythagorean
School. He was the wisest as well as the most learned
man of his time.

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PYTHAGORAS

OME unkind person has said that Pythagorsts
was the original charter member of the
Jesuits Society, The maxim that the end
justifies the means was the cornerstone of
Egyptian theology. When Pythagoras left Egypt he
took with him this cornerstone as a souvenir. That the
priests could hold their power over the masses only
through magic and miracle was fully believed, and as a
good police system the value of organized religion was
highly appreciated. In fact, no ruler could hold his
place, unsupported by the priest. Both were divine
propositions. One searches in vain for simple truth
among the sages, solons, philosophers, poets and
prophets that existed down to the time of Socrates.

/Truth for truth's sake was absolutely unimagined;

( freethought was unguessed.

NExpediency was always placed before truth.
Truth was furnished with frills — the people otherwise
would not be impressed. Chants, robes, ritual, proces-
sions, banging of bells, burning of incense, strange
sounds, sights and smells: these were considered
necessary factors in teaching divine truth.
To worship with a noise seems to us a little like making
love with a brass band.

Pythagorzis was a very great man, but for him to
eliminate theological chaff entirely was impossible. So
we find that when he was about to speak, red fire filled
the building as soon as he arose. It was all a little like

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PYTHAGORAS

the alleged plan of the late Reverend T. DeWitt
Talmage, who used to have an Irishman let loose a
white pigeon from the organ-loft at an opportune time.
^ When Pythagoras burned the red fire, of course the
audience thought a miracle was taking place, unable
to understand a simple stage-trick which all the boys
in the gallery who delight in ** Faust " now understand.
^ However, the Pythagorean School had much virtue
on its side, and made a sincere and earnest effort to
solve certain problems that yet are vexing us.
The Temple of the Muses, built by Pythagoras at
Crotona, is described by lamblichus as a stone struc-
ture with walls twenty feet thick, the light being
admitted only from the top. It was evidently con-
structed after the Egyptian pattern, and the intent was
to teach there the esoteric doctrine. But Pythagoras
improved upon the Egyptian methods and opened his
temple on certain days to all and any who desired to
come. Then at times he gave lectures to women only,
and then to men only, and also to children, thus show-
ing that modern revival methods are not wholly modern.
^ These lectures contain the very essence of Pythago-
rean philosophy, and include so much practical com-
monsense that they are still quoted. These are some of
the sayings that impressed Socrates, Pericles, Aristotle
and Pliny. What the Egyptians actually taught we
really do not know — it was too gaseous to last. Only
the good endures. Says Pythagoras:
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PYTHAGORAS

Cut not into the grape. Exaltation coming from wine
is not good. You hope too much in this condition, so
are afterwards depressed. Wise men are neither cast
down in defeat nor exalted by success. Eat moderately,
bathe plentifully, exercise much in the open air, walk
far, and climb the hills alone.
X Above all things, learn to keep silence — ^hear all and
speak little. If you are defamed, answer not back. Talk
convinces no one. Your life and character proclaim you
more than any argument you can put forth. Lies return
to plague those who repeat them.

The secret of power is to keep an even temper, and
remember that no one thing that can happen is of much
moment. The course of justice, industry, courage,
moderation, silence, means that you shall receive your
due of every good thing. The gods may be slow, but
they never forget.

It is not for us to punish men nor avenge ourselves for
slights, wrongs and insults — ^wait, and you will see that
Nemesis unhorses the man intent on calumny.
A woman's ornaments should be modesty, simplicity,
truth, obedience. If a woman would hold a man captive
she can only do it by obeying him. Violent women are
even more displeasing to the gods than violent men —
both are destroying themselves. Strife is always defeat.
^ Debauchery, riot, splendor, luxury, are attempts to
get a pleasure out of life that is not our due, and so Nem-
esis provides her penalty for the idle and gluttonous 53
Fear and honor the gods. They guide our ways and
watch over us in our sleep. After the gods, a man's
first thought should be of his father and mother. Next
to these his wife, then his children.

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PYTHAGORAS

So great was this power of Pythagoras over the people
that many of the women who came, hearing his dis-
course on the folly of pride and splendor, threw off
their cloaks, and left them with their rings, anklets
and necklaces on the altar.

With these and other offerings Pythagoras built another
temple, this time to Apollo, and the Temple to the
Muses was left open all the time for the people.
His power over the multitude alarmed the magistrates,
so they sent for him to examine him as to his influence
and intents. He explained to them that as the Muses
were never at variance among themselves, always living
in subjection to Apollo, so should magistrates agree
among themselves and think only of being loyal to the
king. All royal edicts and laws are reflections of divine
law, and therefore must be obeyed without question.
And as the Muses never interrupt the harmony of
Heaven, but in fact add to it, so should men ever keep
harmony among themselves.

All officers of the government should consider them-
selves as runners in the Olympian games, and never
seek to trip, jostle, harass or annoy a rival, but run
the race squarely and fairly, satisfied to be beaten if
the other is the stronger and better man. An unfair
victory gains only the anger of the gods.
All disorders in the State come from ill education of
the young. Children not brought up to be patient, to
endure, to work, to be considerate of their elders and

PYTHAGORAS

respectful to all, gmw^disea^jsedjmi^^^ find relief

at last in anarchy and rebellion. So to take great care
of children in their infancy, and then leave them at
puberty to follow their own inclinations, is to sow
disorder. Children well loved and kept close to their
parents grow up into men and women who are an
ornament to the State and a joy to the gods. Lawless,
complaining, restless, idle children grieve the gods and
bring trouble upon their parents and society.
The magistrates were here so pleased, and satisfied
in their own minds that Pythagoras meant the State
no harm, that they issued an order that all citizens
should attend upon his lectures at least once a week,
and take their wives and children with them.
They also offered to pay Pythagoras — that is, put him
on the payroll as a public teacher — but he declined to
accept money for his services. In this, lamblichus says,
he was very wise, since by declining a fixed fee, ten times
as much was laid upon the altar of the Temple of the
Muses, and not knowing to whom to return it, Pythago-
rets was obliged to keep it for himself and the poor.

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PYTHAGORAS

HURCHMEN of the Middle Ages worked the
memory of Pythagoras great injustice by
quoting him Hterally in order to prove how
much they were beyond him. Symbols and
epigrams require a sympathetic hearer, otherwise they
are as naught 33 33

For instance, Pythagoras remarks, ** Sit thou not down
upon a bushel measure/* What he probably meant was,
get busy and fill the measure with grain rather than use
it for a seat.

** Eat not the heart '* — do not act so as to harrow the
feelings of your friends, and do not be morbid.
** Never stir the fire with a sword *' — do not inflame
people who are wrathful.

** Wear not the image of God upon your jewelry '* —
do not make religion a proud or boastful thing.
** Help men to a burden, but never unburden them."
This saying was used by Saint Francis to prove that the
pagan philosophers had no tenderness, and that the
humanities came at a later date. We can now easily
understand that to relieve men of responsibilities is no
help; rather do we grow strong by carrying burdens.
^** Leave not the mark of the pot upon the ashes"
— wipe out the past, forget it, look to the future.
** Feed no animal that has crooked claws '* — do not
encourage rogues by supplying them a living.
** Eat no fish whose fins are black " — ^have nothing to
do with men whose deeds are dark.
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PYTHAGORAS

"Always have salt upon your table" — this seems the
original of "cum grano salis" of the Romans.
** Leave the vinegar at a distance " — ^keep sweet.
** Speak not in the face of the sun " — even Erasmus
thought this referred to magic. To us it is quite reason-
able to suppose that it meant, ** do not talk too much
in public places."

** Pick not up what falls from the table " — Plutarch calls
this superstition, but we can just as easily suppose it
was out of consideration for cats, dogs or hungry men.
The Bible has a command against gleaning too closely,
and leaving nothing for the traveler.
** When making sacrifice, never pare your nails ** — that
is to say, do one thing at a time; wind not the clock
at an inopportune time.

** Eat not in the chariot " — ^when you travel, travel.
^ ** Feed not yourself with your left hand " — get your
living openly and avoid all left-handed dealings.
And so there are hundreds of these Pythagorean say-
ings that have vexed our classic friends for over two
thousand years. All Greek scholars who really pride
themselves on their scholarship have taken a hand at
them, and agitated the ether just as the members of
the Kokomo Woman's Club discuss obscure passages
in Bliss Carman or Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Learned
people are apt to comprehend anything but the obvious.

91

PYTHAGORAS

HE School of Pythagoras grew until It became
the chief attraction of Crotona. The size of
the town was doubled through the pilgrims
who came to study music, mathematics,
medicine, ethics and the science of government.
The Pythagorean plan of treating the sick by music
was long considered as mere incantation, but there
is a suspicion now that it was actual science. Once
there was a man who rode a hobby all his life; and
long after he was dead, folks discovered it was a real
live horse and had carried the man long miles. '
»-''''^ythagoras reduced the musical scale to a mathemati-
cal science^^In astronomy he anticipated Copernicus,
and indeed, it was cited as the chief offense of Coperni-
cus that he had borrowed from a pagan. Copernicus,
it seems, set the merry churchmen digging into Greek
literature to find out just how bad Pythagoras was.
This did the churchmen good, but did not help the
cause of Copernicus.

Pythagoras for a time sought to popularize his work,
but he soon found to his dismay that he was attracting
cheap and unworthy people, who came not so much
out of a love of learning as to satisfy a morbid curiosity
and gain a short cut to wisdom. They wanted secrets,
and knowing that Pythagoras had spent twenty years
in Egypt, they came to him, hoping to get them.
Said Pythagoras, ** He who digs, always ^nds/^ At
another time, he puttKe same idea reversely, thus,
92

PYTHAGORAS

** He who digs not, never finds.'* ^ Pythagoras was well
past forty when he married a daughter of one of the
chief citizens of Crotona. It seems that, inspired by his
wife, who was first one of his pupils and then a disciple,
he conceived a new mode of life, which he thought would
soon overthrow the old manner of living.
Pythagoras himself wrote nothing, but all his pupils
kept tablets, and Athens in the century following
Pythagoras was full of these Pythagorean notebooks,
and these supply us the scattered data from which his
life was written.

Pythagoras, like so many other great men, had his
dream of Utopia: it was a college or, literally, **a col-
lection of people,** where all were on an equality.
Everybody worked, everybody studied, everybody
helped everybody, and all refrained from disturbing or
distressing any one. It was the Oneida Community
taken over by Brook Farm and fused into a religious
and scientific New Harmony by the Shakers.
One smiles to see the minute rules that were made
for the guidance of the members. They look like a
transcript from a sermon by John Alexander Dowie,
revised by the shade of Robert Owen.
This Pythagorean Community was organized out of a
necessity in order to escape the blow- ins who sailed
across from Greece intent on some new thing, but
principally to get knowledge and a living without work.
^ And so Pythagoras and his wife formed a close

93

PYTHAGORAS

corporation. For each member there was an initiation,
strict and severe, the intent of which was absolutely to
bar the transient triflers. Each member was to turn
over to the Common Treasury all the money and goods
he had of every kind and quality. They started naked,
just as did Pythagoras when he stood at the door of
the temple in Egypt.

Simplicity, truth, honesty and mutual service were to
govern. It was an outcrop of the monastic Impulse,
save that women were admitted, also. Unlike the
Egyptians, Pythagoras believed now in the equality of
the sexes, and his wife daily led the women's chorus,
and she also gave lectures. The children were especially
cared for by women set apart as nurses and teachers.
By rearing perfect children, it was hoped and expected
to produce in turn a perfect race.

The whole idea was a phase of totemism and tabu.
^That it flourished for about thirty years is very
certain. Two sons and a daughter of Pythagoras grew
to maturity in the college, and this daughter was tried
by the Order on the criminal charge of selling the
secret doctrines of her father to outsiders.
One of the sons It seems made trouble, also. In an
attempt to usurp his father's place and take charge of
affairs, as ** next friend." One generation is about the
limit of a Utopian Community. When those who have
organized the community weaken and one by one pass
away, and the young assumeauthority, the old ideas
94

PYTHAGORAS

of austerity are forgotten and dissipation and disinte-
gration enter. So do we move in circles.
The final blow to the Pythagorean College came through
jealousy and misunderstanding of the citizens outside.
It was the old question of Town versus Gown. The
Pythagoreans numbered nearly three hundred people.
They held themselves aloof, and no doubt had an exas-
perating pride. No strangers were ever allowed inside
the walls — they were a law unto themselves.
Internal strife and tales told by dissenters excited the
curiosity, and then the prejudice, of the townspeople.
^Then the report got abroad that the Pythagoreans
were collecting arms and were about to overthrow the
local government and enslave the officials.
On a certain night, led by a band of drunken soldiers, a
mob made an assault upon the college. The buildings
were fired, and the members were either destroyed in
the flames or killed as they rushed forth to escape.
Tradition has it that Pythagoras was later seen by a
shepherd on the mountains, but the probabilities are
that he perished with his people. But you can not
dispose of a great man by killing him. Here we are
reading, writing and talking yet of Pythagoras.

95

PLATO

How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in

answer to the question, ** How does love suit with age,

Sophocles — ^are you still the man you were? *'

** Peace,*' he replied; ** most gladly have I escaped that,

and I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious

master.**

That saying of his has often come into my mind since,

and seems to me still as good as at the time when I

heard him. For certainly old age has a great sense of

calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold,

then, as Sophocles says, you have escaped from the

control not of one master only, but of many. And of

these regrets, as well as of the complaint about relations,

Socrates, the cause is to be sought, not in men's ages,

but in their characters and tempers; for he who is of a

calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of

age, but he who is of an opposite disposition will find

youth and age equally a burden.

— The Republic

PLATO

PLATO

THINKING man is one of the most
recent productions evolved from
Nature's laboratory. The first man
of brains to express himself about
the world in an honest, simple and
natural way, just as if nothing had
been said about it before, was
Socrates Si Si
Twenty-four centuries have passed since Socrates was
put to death on the charge of speaking disrespectfully of
the gods and polluting the minds of the youths of
Athens. During ten of these centuries that have passed
since then, the race lost the capacity to think, through
the successful combination of the priest and the soldier.
These men blocked human evolution. The penalty for
making slaves is that you become one.
To suppress humanity is to suppress yourself.
The race is one. So the priests and the soldiers who in
the Third Century had a modicum of worth themselves,
sank and were submerged in the general slough of
superstition and ignorance. It was a panic that con-
tinued for a thousand years, all through the endeavor of
faulty men to make people good by force. At all times,
up to within our own decade, frank expression on
religious, economic and social topics has been fraught
with great peril. Even yet any man who hopes for

99

PLATO

popularity as a writer, orator, merchant or politician,
would do well to conceal studiously his inmost beliefs.
On such simple themes as the taxation of real estate,
regardless of the business of the owner, and a payment
of a like wage for a like service without consideration
of sex, the statesman who has the temerity to speak
out will be quickly relegated to private life. Successful
merchants depending on a local constituency find it
expedient to cater to popular superstitions by heading
subscription-lists for the support of things in which
they do not believe. No avowed independent thinker
would be tolerated as chief ruler of any of the so-called
civilized countries.

The fact, however, that the penalty for frank expres-
sion is limited now to social and commercial ostracism
is very hopeful — a few years ago it meant the scaffold.
^ We have been heirs to a leaden legacy of fear that
has well-nigh banished joy and made of life a long
nightmare 5S 5S

In very truth, the race has been insane.
Hallucinations, fallacies, fears, have gnawed at our
hearts, and men have fought men with deadly frenzy.
The people who interfered, trying to save us, we have
killed. Truly did we say, ** There is no health in us,"
which repetition did not tend to mend the malady 5S
We are now getting convalescent. We are hobbling
out into the sunshine on crutches. We have discharged
most of our old advisers, heaved the dulling and deadly
100

PLATO

bottles out of the windows, and are Intent on studying
and understanding our own case. Our motto Is twenty-
four centuries old — ^it is simply this : KNOW THYSELF.

101

PLATO

[OCRATES was a street preacher, with a
beautiful indifference as to whether people
liked him or not. To most Athenians he was
the town fool. Athens was a little city (only
about one hundred fifty thousand), and everybody
knew Socrates. The popular plays caricatured him; the
topical songs misquoted him; the funny artists on the
street-corners who modeled things in clay, while you
waited, made figures of him.
Everybody knew Socrates — I guess so!
r Plato, the handsome youth of nineteen, wearing a purple
) robe, which marked him as one of the nobility, paused
,' to listen to this uncouth man who gave everything and
vwanted nothing.
Ye gods I But it is no wonder they caricatured him —
he was a temptation too great to resist.
/ Plato smiled — he never laughed, being too well-bred
vfor that. Then he sighed, and moved a little nearer in,
^ ** Individuals are nothing. The State is all. To offend
the State is to die. The State is an organization and we
are members of it. The State is only as rich as its
poorest citizen. We are all given a little sample of
divinity to study, model and marvel at. To understand
the State you must KNOW THYSELF."
Plato lingered until the little crowd had dispersed, and
when the old man with the goggle-eyes and full-moon
face went shuffling slowly down the street, he ap-
proached and asked him a question.
102

PLATO

This man Socrates wsls no fool — the populace was
wrong — he was a man so natural and free from cant
that he appeared to the triflers and pretenders like a
pretender, and they asked, ** Is he sincere? **

WhajLElato -was by-biftlv-Jjj^eeding and inheritance^ v

Socrates was by nature:7;:;;gjnjDbM jpaBlL -...-.

Upjto this time the^mbitiQn^-oi-£latQ^JiadJ3een.-fQr . _

place and power — to make the right impression on the

people in order to gain political preferment. He had

^'^en educated in the schooFof^the Sophists, and his_
principal studies were, poe try ,^ rhetoric and deportment.
fl And now straightway he destroyed the manuscript
of his poems, for in their writing he had suddenly dis-
covered that he had not written what he inwardly
believed was true, but simply that which he thought
was proper and nice to say. In other words, hisjiter^
ati^ire had been a form of pretense. *^

Daily thereafter, where wentSocrates^jdberejy^lvt Plato^^ y
Bide by side they sat on the curb — Socrates talking,
questioning the bystanders, accosting the passers-by;
Plato talking little, but listening much.
Socrates was short, stout and miles around. Plato was «^
jail, athletic and broad-shouldered. In fact, the word,
** plato," or ** pjaton,*' means broad, and it was given
him gis^a nickname by his comrades. His correct name
waS-Aristocles, but ** Plato '^_suitei_hini_ betters-sine^
it^ jymbols^^hat he was not only broad of shoulder,
but likewise in mind. He was not only noble by birth,

103

PLATO

but noble In appearance./vfl Emerson calls him the
universal man. He absorbed all the science, all the art,
all the philosophy of his day. He was handsome, kindly,
graceful, gracious, generous, and lived and died a
bachelor. He never collided with either poverty or
matrimony.

104

PLATO

LATO was twenty-eight years old when
Socrates died. For eight years th^ had been
together daily. After the death of Socrates,
Plato lived Tor forty-six years, just to keep
alive the name and fame of the great philosopher 53
Socrates comes to us through Plato. Various other
contemporaries mention Socrates and quote him, some
to his disadvantage, but it was left for Plato to give us
the heart of his philosophy, and limn his character for
all time in unforgetable outline.

Plato is called the ** Pride of Greece." His contribu- ■/
tion to the wealth of the world consists in the fact
that he taught the joys of the intellect — tjiajsupreme
satisfaction that comes through thinking. JfThis is the

pure Platonic philosophy: l-n^prl nnr orraH'firal-inrts in

exalted thought and not in bodily indulgence. Plato's j
theory^that five years should be given in early man- \
hood to abstract thought, abstaining from all practical
affairs, so as to acquire a love for learning, has been
grafted upon a theological stalk and comes down to
our present time. It has, however, now been discarded /
by the world's best thinkers as a fallacy. The unit of j
man's life is the day, not the month or year, much less
a period of five years. Each day we must exercise the
mind, just as each day we must exercise the body.
We can not store up health and draw upon it at will
over long-deferred periods. The account must be kept
active. To keep physical energy we must expend

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PLATO

physical energy every day. The opinion of Herbert
Spencer that thought is a physical function — a, vibra-
tion set up in a certain area of brain-cells — ^is an idea
never preached by Plato. The brain, being an organ,
must be used, not merely in one part for five years to
the exclusion of all other parts, but all parts should
be used daily. To this end the practical things of life
should daily engage our attention, no less than the
contemplation of beauty as manifest in music, poetry,
art or dialectics. The thought that every day we should
look upon a beautiful picture, read a beautiful poem, or
listen for a little while to beautiful music, is highly
scientific, for this contemplation and appreciation of
harmony is a physical exercise as well as a spiritual one,
and through it we grow, develop, evolve.
That we could not devote five years of our time to
purely esthetic exercises, to the exclusion of practical
things, without very great risk, is now well known.
And when I refer to practical affairs, I mean the effort
which Nature demands we should put forth to get a
living. Every man should live like a poor man, regard-
less of the fact that he may have money. Nature knows
nothing of bank-balances. In order to have an appetite
for dinner, you must first earn your dinner. If you
would sleep at night, you must first pay for sweet sleep
by physical labor.

106

PLATO

LATO was born on the Island of i^gina» ^
where his father owned an estate. His mother
was a direct descendant of Solon, and his
father, not to be outdone, traced to Codrus.
^The father of Socrates was a stonecutter and his
mother a midwife, so very naturally the son had a beau-
tiful contempt for pedigree. Socrates once said to Plato,
"Anybody can trace to Codrus — ^by paying enough to
the man who makes the family-tree.*' This seems to
show that genealogy was a matter of business then as
now, and that nothing is new under the sun. Yet with
all his contempt for heredity, we find Socrates often
expressing pride in the fact that he was a ** native son,**
whereas Plato, Aspasia, the mother of Themistocles,
and various other fairly good people, were Athenian
importations 5S 5S

Socrates belonged to the leisure class and had plenty
of time for extended conversazione, so just how much
seriousness we should mix in his dialogues is still a
problem. Each palate has to season to suit. Also, jvve
can never know how much is Socrates and how much
essence of Plato. Socrates. JAoioto^ nothing, and Plato
ascribes all of his wisdom to jiis^ master. Whether this
'was simple prudence^rmagnanimity is still a question. CsL^
^ The death of Socrates must have been a severe blow r
to Plat<x He^tLonce lef t Athene. It was his first inten-
tion never to return^He traveled througlTthe cil:ies of_
Greece. Southern Italy andL_dpwn to_Egypt, and

" 107

PLATO

everywhere was treated with royal courtesies. ^ After
many solicitatiofistrom Dionysius, Tyrant oftSyracuseJ
he went to visit that worthy, who had a case of philo-
sophic and literary scabies. Dionysius prided himself on
being a Beneficent Autocrat, with a literary and
artistic attachment. He ruled his people, educated
them, cared for them, disciplined them.
Some people call this slavery; others term it ap-
/plied socialism. Dionysius wanted Syracuse to be the
; philosophic center of the world, and to this end Plato
} was importuned to make Syracuse his home and dis-
v^pense his specialty — truth.
This he consented to do.

It was all very much like the arrangement between
- Maecenas and Horace, or Voltaire and Frederick the
Great. The patron is a man who patronizes — he wants
something, and the particular thing that Dionysius
wanted was to have Plato hold a colored light upon
the performances of His Altruistic, Beneficent, Royal
Jackanapes. Put Plato was a simple, honest anrLdu^ftnt
man^ he had caught the habit from Socrates.
Charles Ferguson says that the simple life does not
\ consist in living in the woods and wearing overalls and
J sandals, but in getting the cant out of one's cosmos and
V eliminating the hypocrisy from one's soul.
Plato lived the simple life. When he spoke he stated
what he thought. He discussed exploitation, war, tax-
ation, and the Divine Right of Kings. Kings are very
108

PLATO

unfortunate — they are shut off and shielded from truth
on every side. They get their facts at second hand and
are lied to all day long. Consequently they become in
time incapable of digesting truth. A court, being an
artificial fabric, requires constant bracing. Next to
capital, nothing is so timid as a king. Heine says that
kings have to draw their nightcaps on over their
crowns when they go to bed, in order to keep them from
being stolen, and that they are subject to insomnia.
^Walt Whitman, with nothing to lose — not even a
reputation or a hat — ^was much more kingly walking
bareheaded past the White House than Nicholas of
Russia or Alfonso of Spain can ever possibly be.
Dionysius thought that he wanted a philosophic court,
*But all he wanted was to make folks think he had a
philosophic court Plato supplied^ him ^the genuine
article, and very naturally Plato was soon invited to
vacate 5S SS

After he had gone, Dionysius, fearful that Plato would \
give him a bad reputation in Athens — somewhat after \
the manner and habit of the ** escaped nun " — sent a )
fast-rowing galley after him. Plato was arrested and /
sold into slavery on his own isle of i^gina. /^

This all sounds very tragic, but the real fact is it was a
sort of comedy of errors — as a king's doings are when
viewed from a safe and convenient distance. De Wolf
Hopper's kings are the real thing. Dionysius claimed
that Plato owed him money.and so he got out a body-

\w^

PLATO

attachment, and sold the philosopher to the highest
bidderj^"^

This was a pf;rfer.t1v legal proceeding, being simply
peonage, a thing which exists in someparts of the United
States today. I state the fact without prejudice,
merely to show how hard custom dies.
^ Plato was too big a man conveniently either to secrete

iL^c^^^ or kill. Certain people in Athens plagiarized Doctor
c^ J^ Johnson who, on hearing that Goldsmith had debts of
several thousand pounds, in admiration exclaimed,
** Was ever poet so trusted before! ** Other good friends
ascertained the amount of the claim and paid it, just
as Colonel H. H. Rogers graciously cleared up the
liabilities of Mark Twain, after the author of ** Huckle-
berry Finn ** had landed his business craft on a sandbar.
^ And so Plato went free, arriving back in Athens, aged
forty, a wiserand a better man than whenTTie left 5S

c

no

PLATO

OTHING absolves a reputation like silence
and absence, or what the village editors call
** the grim reaper.*' To live is always more or
less of an offense, especially if you have
thoughts and express them. Athens exists, in degree,
because she killed Socrates, just as Jerusalem is unfor-
getable for a similar reason. The South did not realize
that Lincoln was her best friend until the assassin's
bullet had found his brain. Many good men in Chicago
did not cease to revile their chiefest citizen, until the
ears of Altgeld were stopped and his hands stiffened by
death. The lips of the dead are eloquent,
r Plato's ten years of absence had given him prestige.
) He was honored because he had been the near and
\ dear friend of Socrates, a great and good man who
/ was killed through mistake.
Most murders and killings of men, judicial and other-
wise, are matters of misunderstandings.
Plato had been driven out of Syracuse for the very
reasons that Socrates had been killed at Athens. And
now behold, when Dionysius saw how Athens was
ihonoring Plato, he discovered that it was all a mistake
of his bookkeeper, so he wrote to Plato to come back
^nd all would be forgiven.

s

111

PLATO

HOSE who set out to live the Ideal Life have a
hard trail to travel. The road to Jericho is a
rocky one — especially if we are a little in
doubt as to whether it really is the road to
Jericho or not. Perhaps if we ever find the man who
lives the Ideal Life he will be quite unaware of it, so
occupied will he be in his work — ^so forgetful of self 58
("Time had taught Plato diplomacy. He now saw that
to teach people who did not want to be taught was an
error in judgment for which one might forfeit his head.
^ Socrates was the first Democrat : he stood for the
demos— the people. Plato wpuld have done the same,
but he saw that the b)usiness was extra hazardous, to
use the phrase of our insurance friends. He who works
for the people will be destroyed by the people. Hemlock
is such a rare and precious commodity that few can
afford it; the cross is a privilege so costly that few care
to pay the price.

The genius is a man who first states truths; and all
truths are unpleasant on their first presentation. That
which is uncommon is offensive. ** Who ever heard
anything like that before? " ask the literary and philo-
sophic hill tribes in fierce indignation. Says James
Russell Lowell, " I blab unpleasant truths, you see,
that none may need to state them after me."

C Plato was a teacher by nature: this was his business,
his pastime, and the only thing in life that gave him
joy. But he dropped back to the good old ways of
112

PLATO

making truth esoteric as did the pLrjest
instead of exoteric as did Socrates. CHe founded his
college in the grove of his old friend AcademusT^mile
^t ot Athens on the road to Eleusis^ Injionor of
Academus the school was called " i he Academy." It
was secluded, safe, beautiful for situation. In time
Plato bought a tract of land adjoining that of Academus,
and this was set apart as the permanent school. AH the
teaching was done out of doors, master and pupils
seated on the marble benches, by thOountain^'side, or
stiplling through the grounds, rich wi^th^ shrubs and
flowers and enlivened by ^he song of^birds. The climate
ofAthens was about Tike that of Southern California,
where the sun shines three hundred days in the year 58
^lato emphasized the value of the spoken word over
the written, a thing he could well afford to do, since
he was a remarkably good writer/)This for the same
reason that the only man who can afford to go ragged
is the man with a goodly bank-balance. The shibboleth
of the modern schools of oratory is, ** Wp^ovir ihiuug]
ejiicession." And Plato was the man who first said it.
Plato's teaching was all in the form of the " quiz,"
because he believed that truth was not a thing to b§/
acquired from another — ^it is self -discovery.
Indeed, we can imagine it was very delightful — this
walking, strolling, lying on the grass, or seated in
semicircles, indulging in endless talk, easy banter,
with now and then a formal essay read to start the

113

PLATO

vibrations. ^ Here it was that Aristotle came from his
wild home inthe mountains of Macedonia, to remain for
twenty years and to evolve into a rival of the master 58
We can well imagine how Aristotle, the mountain-
climber and horseman, at times grew heartily tired of
the faultily faultless garden with its high wall and
graveled walks and delicate shrubbery, and shouted
aloud in protest, ** The whole world of mountain,
valley and plain should be our Academy, not this
pent-up Utica that contracts our powers.*'
Then followed an argument as to the relative value of
talking about things or doing them, or Poetry versus
Science 33 58

yPoetry, philosophy and religion are very old themes,
and they were old even in Plato's day; but natural
science came in with Aristotle. And science is only the
classification of the common knowledge of the common
people. It was Aristotle who named things, not Adam.
He contended that the classification and naming of
plants, rocks and animals was quite as important as to
classify ideas about human happiness and make guesses
at the state of the soul after death.
Of course he got himself beautifully misunderstood,
because he was advocating something which had never
been advocated before. In this lay his virtue, that he
outran human sympathy, even the sympathy of the
great Plato,

Yet for a while the unfolding genius of this young
114

PLATO

barbarian was a great joy to Plato, as the earnest,
eager Intellect of an ambitious pupil always Is to his
teacher. yPIa to was great In speculation; Aristotle was
great In observation. Well has It been said that It was
Aristotle who discovered the world. And Aristotle In
his old age said, ** My attempts to classify the objects
of Nature all came through Plato's teaching me first how
to classify Ideas.'* And forty years before this Plato had
said, ** It was Socrates who taught me this game of the
correlation and classification of thoughts/'j

115

A

PLATO

HE writings of Plato consist of thirty-five
dialogues, and one essay, wJudbuitriiOL cast ^^
m — the dfftmatic form — -^the — Apology;^
These dialogues vary in length from twenty
pages, of, say, four hundred words each, to three
hundred pages. In addition to these books are many
quotations from Plato and references to him by con-
temporary writers. Plato's work is as impersonal as
that of Shakespeare.vXU human ideas, jliuiloui uf belief,^ jVf
emotions and desires pass through the colander of his
mind. He allows everybody to have his say.^
What Plato himself thought can only be ^erred.
- thij jDacJjuii..adiU^->xiQe&- J^ We tuiisliULl oui'

man Plato in our own image. A rritir'n highlit rnr\
ceptiun uf PlciLo's plulosopliyTsTKeTEiglie^^^
of the critir*^ own. ^B, liovvuvui,^^^^^a6onabl3r safe
ssuining lliat''PfatT3^'gWirideas weie-iJut-Tnto the
mouth-of-Soi;iaLc3, fui the one inleiilnof Plato's life
was-4o redeem Socrates from^ -the— charges^ that itad
beea.jnad£..agajnst hiTgjTh^ charactGro Shaliocpcare

I Plato's position in life was that of a spectator rather
than that of an actor. He stood and saw the procession
pass by, and as it passed, commented on ijf He charged
cu his pupils no tuition and accepted no fees, claiming that
to sell one's influence or ideas was immoral^
It will be remembered that Byron held a similar
116

PLATO

position at the beginning of his literary career, and
declared i' faith, he ** would not prostitute his genius
for hire/* He gave his poems to the world. Later, when
his income was pinched, he began to make bargains
with Barabbas and became an artist in per centum,
collecting close, refusing to rhyme without collateral.
^ Byron's humanity is not seriously disputed. Plato
also was human. He had a fixed income and so knew
the worthlessness of riches. He issued no tariff, but
the goodly honorarium left mysteriously on a marble
bench by a rich pupil he accepted, and for it gave
thanks to the gods. He said many great things, but he
never said this: ** I would have every man poor that
hejuight know the value of money."

Th^JRepublic ** is the best known and best read of
any of Plato's dialogues. It outlines an ideal formof~^
govemmentwhere everybody wmild_h^ b^a^lt^hy, happy
aiid__prospexous. It has servedas inspiration to Sir
Thomas More, Erasmus, Jean Jacques Rousseau,
William Morris, Edward Bellamy, Brigham Young,
John Humphrey Noyes and Eugene Deb^lhe sub-
division of labor, by setting apart certampersons to
do certain things — ^for instance, to care for the childrenj
— has made its appeal to Upton Sinclair, who jumped
from his Utopian woodshed into a rubber-plant and
bounced off into oblivion.
^ Plato's plan was intended to relieve marriage from
Vthe danger of becoming a form of slavery. The rulers,

^TT7

PLATO

teachers and artists especially were to be free, and the
j;j|^JIS±ate._was to assume^iirresponslbilities. The reason is
plain: he wanted them to reproduce themselves. But
whether genius is an acquirement or a natural endow-
ment he touches on but lightj^ Also, he seemingly did
^ot realize ** that no hovel is safe from it.*'
L If all marriage-laws were done away with, Plato thought
„ ( that the men and women who were mated would still
^P"^ ^ be true to each other, and that the less the police inter-
"^ j fered in love-relations, the better.

Vin one respect at least, Ekito was certainly right: he
advocated the equality of the sexes, andjeclared^that
ng woman_§hould be owned^by a man nor forced into a
mode of life, either by economic exigency or marriage,
that was repulsive to her. Also, that her right to bear
children or not should be strictly her own affair, and
to dictate to a mother as to who should father her
children tended to the production of a slavish race.
[51 The eugenics of ** The Republic " were tried for
thirty years by the Oneida Community with really
good results, but one generation of communal mar-
riages was proved to be the limit, a thing Plato now
knows from his heights in Elysium, but which he in
his bachelor dreams on earth did not realiz^^
In his division of labor each was to do the thing he was
best fitted to do. and which he likeA-to_^do. It was_^
assumed that each person had a gift, and that to use
this gift all that was necessary was to give him an'^
118

PLATO

opportunity. That very modern cry of ** equality of
opporlimity ** harks back to Plato. "^

The monastic impulse was a very old thing, even in
the time of Plato. The monastic impulse is simply
cutting for sanctuary when the pressure of society
gets intense — a getting rid of the world by running
away from it. This usually occurs when the novitiate
has exhausted his capacity for sin, and so tries saintship
in the hope of getting a new thrill.
Plato had been much impressed by the experiments
of Pythagoras, who had actually done the thing of
which Plato only talked. Plato now picked the weak
points in the Pythagorean philosophy and sought, in
imagination, to construct a fabric that would stand the
test of time.

However, all Utopias, like all monasteries and peni-
tentiaries, are made up of picked people. The Oneida
Community was not composed of average individuals,
but of people who were selected with great care, and
only admitted after severe tests. And great as was
Platq^J^_coiilcL not outline an_ideaJ4>laD.jajL]ifg_except
for an ideal^eople./^"
To remain in the world of work and share the burdens
of all — to ask for nothing which other people can not
have on like terms — not to consider yourself peculiar,
unique and therefore immune and exempt — is now the
ideal of the best minds. We have small faith in monas-
ticism or monotheism, but we do have great faith

119

)

PLATO

in monism. We believe in the Solidarity of the Race.

We must all progress together. Whether Pythagoras,

John Humphrey Noyes and Brigham Young were

ahead of the world or behind it is really not to the

point — the many would not tolerate them. So their

idealism was diluted with danger until it became as

somber, sober and slaty-gray as the average existence,

and fades as well as shrinks in the wash.

A private good is no more possible for a community

than it is for an individual. We help ourselves only as

we advance the race^-we are happy only as we minister

to the whole. The race is one, and this is monism 58

And here Socrates and Plato seemingly separate, for

operates in his life wanted nothing, not even joy, and

I Plato's desire was for peace and happiness. Yet the

ideal of justice in Plato's philosophy is very exalted.

/'^ No writer in that flowering time of beauty and reason

/ which we call *' The Age of Pericles " exerted so pro-

^ound an influence as Plato. All the philosophers

"^ that follow him were largely inspired by him. Those

who berated him most were, very naturally, the ones

he had most benefited. XTeach a boy to write, and the

probabilities are that his first essay, when he has cut

loose from his teacher's apron-strings and starts a

brownie bibliomag, will be in denunciation of the man

who taught him to push the pen and wield the Faber.

^ Xenophon was more indebted, intellectually, to Plato

than to any other living man, yet he speaks scathingly

120

PLATO

of his master. Plutarch, Cicero, lamblichus, Pliny,
Horace and all the other Roman writers read Plato
religiously. The Christian Fathers kept his work alive,
and passed it on to Dante, Petrarch and the early
writers of the Renaissance, so all of their thought is
well flavored with essence of Plato. Well does Addison
put into the mouth of Cato those well-known words:

It must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well! —

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire.

This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror.

Of falling into nought ? Why shrinks the soul

Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?

*T is the divinity that stirs within us ;

'T is heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,

And intimates eternity to man.

All of that English group of writers in Addison's day
knew their Plato, exactly as did Cato and the other
great Romans of near two thousand years before. From,
Plato you can prove that there is a life af ter_this Jor.
each individual soul, as Francis of Assisi proved, or you
can take your Plato, as^d Hume, and show that man
lives only in his influence, his individual life returning
to the mass and becoming a part of all the great pulsing
existence that ebbs and flows through plant and tree
and flower and flying bird. And today we turn to
Plato and find the corroboration of our thought that
to live now and here, up to our highest and best,

121

PLATO

is the acme of wisdom. We prepare to live by living.
If there is another world we better be getting ready
for it. If heaven is an Ideal Republic it is founded on
unselfishness, truth, reciprocity, equanimity and co-
operation, and only those will be at home there who
have practised these virtues here. Man was made for
mutual service. This way lies Elysium.
Plato was a teacher of teachers, and like every other
great teacher who has ever lived, his soul goes marching
on, for to teach is to influence, and influence never dies.
Hail, Plato!

122

KING ALFRED

A saint without superstition, a scholar without ostenta-
tion, a warrior who fought only in defense of his country,
a conqueror whose laurels were never stained with
cruelty, a prince never cast down by adversity, nor
lifted up to insolence in the hour of triumph — there is

no other name in English history to compare with his.

— Freeman

KING ALFRED

KING ALFRED

ULIUS Ci^AR, the greatest man
of initiative the world heis ever seen,
had a nephew known as Caesar
Augustus 53 53

The grandeur that was Rome
occurred in the reign of Augustus.
It was Augustus who said, ** I found
your city mud and I left it marble ! *'
The impetus given to the times by Julius Caesar was
conserved by Augustus. He continued the work his
uncle had planned, but before he had completed it, he
grew very weary, and the weariness he expressed was
also the old age of the nation. There was lime in the
bones of the boss.

When Caesar Augustus said, ** Rome is great enough —
here we rest,** he merely meant that he had reached
his limit, and had had enough of road-building. At the
boundaries of the Empire and the end of each Roman
road he set up a statue of the god Terminus. This god
gave his blessing to those going beyond, and a welcome
to those returning, just as the Stars and Stripes welcome
the traveler coming to America from across the sea.
This god Terminus also supplied the world, especially
the railroad world, a word.

Julius Caesar reached his terminus and died, aged fifty-
six, from compulsory vaccination.

125

KING ALFRED

Augustus, aged seventy-seven, died peacefully in bed.
^ The reign of Augustus marks the crest of the power
of Rome, and a crest is a place where no man nor
nation stays — ^when you reach it, you go over and
down on the other side.

When Augustus set up his Termini, announcing to
all mankind that this was the limit, the enemies of
Rome took courage and became active. The Goths
and Vandals, hanging on the skirts of Rome, had
learned many things, and one of the things was that,
for getting rich quick, conquest is better than pro-
duction. The barbarians, some of whom evidently
had a sense of humor, had a way of picking up the
Termini and carrying them inward, and finally they
smashed them entirely, somewhat as country boys,
out hunting, shoot railroad-signs full of holes Si

126

KING ALFRED

N the Middle Ages the soldier was supreme,
and in the name of protecting the people he
robbed the people, a tradition much respected,
but not in the breach.
To escape the scourge of war, certain families and tribes
moved northward. It was fight and turmoil in Southern
Europe that settled Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and
produced the Norsemen. And in making for them-
selves a home in the wilderness, battling with the
climate and unkind conditions, there was evolved a
very strong and sturdy type of man.
On the north shore of the Baltic dwelt the Norsemen.
Along the southern shore were scattered several small
trijjes or families who were not strong enough in num-
bers to fight the Goths, and so sought peace with them,
and were taxed — or pillaged — often to the point of
starvation. They were so poor and insignificant that
jthe Romans really never heard of them, and they never
heard of the Romans, save in myth and legend. They
lived in caves and rude stone huts. They fished, hunted,
raised goats and farmed, and finally, about the year
Three Hundred, they secured horses, which they bought
from the Goths, who stole them from the Romans.
^ Their Government was the Folkmoot, the germ of
the New England Town Meeting. All the laws were
passed by all the people, and in the making of these
laws, the women had an equal voice with the men.
^ When important steps were to be taken where the

127

KING ALFRED

interests of the whole tribe were at stake, great defer-
ence was paid to the opinions of the mothers. For the
mother spoke not only for herself, but for her children.
The mother was the home-maker. The word ** wife **
means weaver; and this deference to the one member
of the family who invented, created, preparing both
the food and the clothing, is a marked Teutonic instinct.
Its survival is seen yet in the sturdy German of the
middle class, who takes his wife and children with him
when he goes to the concert or to the beer-garden. So
has he always taken his family with him on his migra-
tions; whereas the Greeks and the Romans left their
women behind.

South America was colonized by Spanish men. And
the Indians and the Negroes absorbed the haughty
grandee, yet preserved the faults and failings of both.
^ The German who moves to America comes to stay —
his family is a part of himself. The Italian comes alone,
and his intent is to make what he can and return. This
is a modified form of conquest.

The Romans who came to Brittany in Caesar's time
were men. Those who remained ** took to themselves
wives among the daughters of Philistia,*' as strong men
ever are wont to do when they seek to govern savage
tribes. And note this — instead of raising the savages or
barbarians to their level, they sink to theirs. The child
takes the status of the mother. The white man who
marries an Indian woman becomes an Indian and their
128

KING ALFRED

children are Indians. With the Negro race the same
law holds.

The Teutonic races have conquered the world because
they took their women with them on their migrations,
mental and physical. And the moral seems to be this,
that the men who progress financially, morally and
spiritually are those who do not leave their women-folk
behind 5S 5S

129

KING ALFRED

HEN we think of the EngUsh, we usually have
in mind the British Isles. But the original
England was situated along the southern
shore of the Baltic Sea. This was the true
Eng-Land, the land of the Engles or Angles. To one
side lay Jute-Land, the home of the Jutes. On the other
was Saxony, where dwelt the Saxons.
Jute-Land still lives in Jutland; the land of the Saxons
is yet so indicated on the map; but Eng-Land was
transported bodily a thousand miles, and her original
territory became an abandoned farm where barbarians
battled 53 5S

And now behold how England has diffused herself all
over the world, with the British Isles as a base of sup-
plies, or a radiating center. Behind this twenty miles
of water that separates Calais and Dover she found
safety and security, and there her brain and brawn
evolved and expanded. So there are now Anglo-Amer-
icans, Anglo- Africans, Anglo-Indians, Anglo- Austra-
lians, and Anglo-New-Zealanders. As the native Indians
of America and the Maoris of New Zealand have given
way before the onward push and persistence of the
English, so likewise did the ancient Britons give way
and were absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons; and then the
Saxons, being a little too fine for the stern competitor,
allowed the Engles to take charge. And as Dutch,
Germans, Slavs and Swedes are transformed with th«
second generation into Ejiglish-Americans when they
130

KING ALFRED

come to America, so did the people from Eng-Land
fuse Saxons, Norsemen, Jutes, Celts and Britons into
one people and fix upon them the indelible stamp of
Eng-Land 5S 53

Yet it is obvious that the characters of the people of
England have been strengthened, modified and refined
by contact with the various races she has met, mixed
with and absorbed. To influence others is to grow. Had
England been satisfied to people and hold the British
Isles, she would ere this have been outrun and absorbed
by Spain or France. To stand still is to retreat. It is
the same with men as it is with races. England's
Colonies have been her strength. They have given her
poise, reserve, ballast — ^and enough trouble to prevent
either revolution, stagnation or introspection.
Nations have their periods of youth, manhood and old
age. Whether England is now passing into decline,
living her life in her children, the Colonies, might be
indelicate to ask. Perhaps as Briton, Celt, Jute and
Saxon were fused to make that hardy, courageous,
restless and sinewy man known as the Englishman,
so are the English, the Dutch, the Swede, the German,
the Slav, transplanted into America, being fused into a
composite man who shall surpass any type that the
world has ever seen. In the British Isles, just as in the
great cities, mankind gets pot-bound. In the newer
lands, the roots strike deep into the soil, and find the
sustenance the human plant requirea

131

KING ALFRED

Walls keep folks in as well as shut other folks out.
The British Isles, rock-faced and sea-girted, shut out
the enemies of England without shutting the English
in. A country surrounded by the sea produces sailors,
and England's position bred a type of man that made
her mistress of the seas. As her drum-taps, greeting the
rising sun, girdle the world, so do her lighthouses
flash protection to the mariner wherever the hungry
sea lies in wait along rocky coasts, the round world
over. England has sounded the shallows, marked the
rocks and reefs, and mapped the coasts.
The first settlement of Saxons in Britain occurred in
the year Four Hundred Forty-nine. They did not come
as invaders, as did the Romans five hundred years
before; their numbers were too few, and their arms
too crude to mean menace to the swarthy, black-haired
Britons. These fair stranger-folk were welcomed as
curiosities and were allowed to settle and make them-
selves homes. Word was sent back to Saxony and Jute-
Land and more settlers came. In a few years came a
shipload of Engles, with their women and children,
red-haired, freckled, tawny. They tilled the soil with a
faith and an intelligence such as the Britons never
brought to bear: very much sis the German settlers
follow the pioneers aind grow rich where the Mudsock
fails. Naturally the fair-haired girls found favor in the
sight of the swarthy Britons. Marriages occurred, and
a new type of man-child appeared as the months went by.
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KING ALFRED

More Engles came. A century passed, and the coast,
from Kent to the Firth of Forth, was dotted with the
farms and homes of the people from the Baltic. There
were now occasional protests from the original holders,
and fights followed, when the Britons retreated before
the strangers, or else were very glad to make terms.
Victory is a matter of staying-power. The Engles had
come to stay.

But a new enemy had appeared — the Norsemen or
Danes. These were sea-nomads who acknowledged no
man as master. Rough, bold, laughing at disaster, with
no patience to build or dig or plow, they landed but to
ravish, steal and lay waste, and then boarded their
craft, sailing away, joying in the ruin they had wrought.
^The next year they came back. The industry and
the thrift of the Engles made Britain a land of promise,
a storehouse where the good things of life could be
secured much more easily than by creating or producing
them. And so now, before this common foe, the Britons,
Jutes, Celts, Saxons and Engles united to punish and
expel the invaders.

The calamity was a blessing — as most calamities are.
From being a dozen little kingdoms, Britain now became
one. A ** Cyng,** or captain, was chosen — an Engle,
strong of arm, clear of brain, blue of eye, with long
yellow hair. He was a man who commanded respect
by his person and by his deeds. His name was Egbert.
fl King Alfred, or Elfred, was born at Wantage, Berk-

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KING ALFRED

shire, in the year Eight Hundred Forty-nine. He was the
grandson of Egbert, a great man, and the son of
Ethelwulf, a man of mediocre qualities. Alfred was
shrewd enough to inherit the courage and persistence
of his grandfather. Our D. A. R. friends are right and
Mark Twain is wrong — ^it is really more necessary to
have a grandfather than a father.

English civilization, begins with Alfred. If you will
refer to the dictionary you will find that the word
** civilization ** simply means to be civil. That is, if you
are civilized you are gentle instead of violent — gaining
your ends by kindly and persuasive means, instead of
through coercion, intimidation and force.
Alfred was the first English gentleman, and let no joker
add ** and the last.** Yet it is needless and quite
irrelevant to say that civilized people are not always
civil; nor are gentlemen always gentle — so little do
words count. Many gentlemen are only gents.
Alfred was civil and gentle. He had been sent to Rome
in his boyhood, and this transplantation had done him
a world of good. Superior men are always transplanted
men: people who do not travel have no perspective.
To stay at home means getting pot-bound. You neither
search down in the soil for color and perfume nor reach
out strong toward the sunshine.

It was only a few years before the time of Alfred that
a Christian monk appeared at Edin-Borough, and told
the astonished Engles and Saxons of the gentle Jesus,
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KING ALFRED

who had been sent to earth by the All-Father to tell
men they should love their enemies and be gentle and
civil and not violent, and should do unto others as they
would be done by. The natural religion of the Great
Spirit which the ancient Teutonic people held had much
in it that was good, but now they were prepared for
something better — they had the hope of a heaven of
rest and happiness after death.

Christianity flourishes best among a downtrodden, poor,
subdued and persecuted people. Renan says it is a
religion of sorrow. And primitive Christianity — the
religion of conduct — ^is a beautiful and pure doctrine
that no sane person ever flouted or scoffed.
The parents of Alfred, filled with holy zeal, allowed
one of the missionary monks to take the boy to Rome,
The idea was that he should become a bishop in the
Church 5S 5S

Ethelred, the elder brother of Alfred, had succeeded
£thelwulf , his father, as King. The Danes had overrun
and ravished the country. For many years these
marauding usurpers had fed their armies on the products
of the land. And now they had more than two-thirds of
the country under their control, and the fear that they
would absolutely subjugate the Anglo-Saxons was
imminent. Ethelwulf gave up the struggle in despair
and died. Ethelred fell in battle. And as the Greeks of
old in their terror cast around for the strongest man
they could find to repel the Persian invaders, and picked

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KING ALFRED

on the boy Alexander, so did the Anglo-Saxons turn to
Alfred, the gentle and silent. He was only twenty- three
years old. In build he was slight and slender, but he
had given token of his courage for four years, fighting
with his brother. He had qualities that were closely
akin to those of both Alexander and Caesar. He had a
cool, clear and vivid intellect and he had invincible
courage. But he surpassed both of the men just named
in that he had a tender, sympathetic heart.
The Danes were overconfident, and had allowed their
discipline to relax. Alfred had at first evidently encour-
aged them in their idea that they had won, for he struck
feebly and then withdrew his army to the marshes,
where the Danish horsemen could not follow.
The Danes went into winter quarters, fat and feasting.
Alfred made a definite plan for a campaign, drilled his
men, prayed with them, and filled their hearts with the
one idea that they were going forth to certain victory.
And to victory they went. They fell upon the Danes
with an impetuosity as unexpected as it was invincible,
and before they could get into their armor, or secure
their horses, they were in a rout. Every timid Engle
and Saxon now took heart — ^it was the Lord's victory
— they were fighting for home — the Danes gave way.
This was not all accomplished quite as easily as I am
writing it, but difficulties, deprivations and disaster
only brought out new resources in Alfred. He was as
serenely hopeful as was Washington at Valley Forge,
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KING ALFRED

and his soldiers were just as ragged. He, too, like
Thomas Paine, cried, ** These are the times that try
men's souls — be grateful for this crisis, for it will give
us opportunity to show that we are men.** He had
aroused his people to a pitch where the Danes would
have had to kill them all, or else give way. As they
could not kill them they gave way. Napoleon at twenty-
six was master of France and had Italy under his heel,
and so was Alfred at the same age supreme in Southern
Britain — including Wessex and Mercia. He rounded up
the enemy, took away their weapons, and then held a
revival-meeting, asking everybody to come forward to
the mourners* -bench. There is no proof that he coerced
them into Christianity. They were glad to accept it.
Alfred seemed to have the persuasive power of the
Reverend Doctor Torrey. Guthrum, the Danish King,
who had come over to take a personal hand in the loot-
ing, was captured, baptized, and then Alfred stood
sponsor for him and gave him the name of Ethelstan.
He was made a bishop.

This acceptance of Christianity by the leaders of the
Danes broke their fierce spirit, and peace followed.
Alfred told the soldiers to use their horses to plow the
fields. The two armies that had fought each other now
worked together at road-making and draining the
marshes. Some of the Danes fled in their ships, but very
many remained and became citizens of the country. The
Danish names are still recognizable. Names beginning

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KING ALFRED

with the aspirate, say Herbert, Hulett, Hubbard,
Hubbs, Harold, Hancock, are Danish, and are the
cause of that beautiful muddling of the ** H *' that still
perplexes the British tongue, the rule governing which
is to put it on where it is not needed and leave it off
where it is. The Danes called the Elngles, ** Hengles,"
and the Engles called a man by the name of Henry,
" Enry." 5S 33

;In saving Wessex, Alfred saved England for the English
people; for it was from Wessex, as a center, that his
successors began the task of reconquering England

* from the Danes.

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KING ALFRED

ITH the rule of Alfred begins the England that
we know. As we call Herodotus the father of
history, so could we, with equal propriety,
call Asser, who wrote in the time of Alfred,
the father of English history. The oldest English book is
the ** Life of Alfred *' by Asser the monk.
That Asser was a dependent on his subject and very
much in love with him, doubtless gave a very strong
bias to the book. That it is right in the main, although
occasionally wrong as to details, is proved by various
corroborating records.

The king's word in Alfred's time was law, and Alfred
proved his modesty by publicly proclaiming that a king
was not divine, but only a man, and therefore a king's
edicts should be endorsed by the people in Folkmoot.
Here we get the genesis of popular government, and
about the only instance that I can recall where a very
strong man acting as chief ruler renounced a part
of his power to the people, of his own accord. Kings
usually have to be trimmed, and it is revolution that
does the shearing. It is the rule that men do not relin-
quish power of their own accord — they have to be
disannexed from it.

Alfred, however, knew the popular heart — he was very
close to the common people. He had slept on the ground
with his soldiers, fared at table with the swineherd's
family, tilled the soil with the farmer folk. His heart
went out to humanity. He did not overrate the average

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KING ALFRED

mind, nor did he underrate it. He had faith in mankind,
and knew that at the last power was with the people.
He did not say, ** Vox populi, vox Dei,** but he thought
it. Therefore he set himself to educating the plain people.
He prophesied a day when all grown men would be
able to read and write, and when all would have an
intelligent, personal interest in the government.
There have been periods in English history when
Britain lagged woefully behind, for England has had
kings who forgot the rights of mankind, and instead of
seeking to serve their people, have battened and fat-
tened upon them. They governed. George the Third
thought that Alfred was a barbarian, and spoke of him
with patronizing pity.

Alfred introduced the system of trial by jury, although
the fact has been pointed out that he did not originate
it. It goes back to the hardy Norseman who acknowl-
edged no man as master, harking back to a time when
there was no law, and to a people whose collective
desire was supreme. In fact, it has its origin in ** Lynch
Law,*' or the rule of the Vigilantes. From a village
turning loose on an offender and pulling him limb from
limb, a degree of deliberation comes in and a committee
of twelve are selected to investigate the deed and
report their verdict.

The jury system began with pirates and robbers, but
it is no less excellent on that account, and we might
add that freedom also began with pirates and robbers,
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KING ALFRED

for they were the people who cried, ** We acknowledge

no man as master.**

The early Greeks had trials by jury — Socrates was
tried by a jury of five hundred citizens.
But let the fact stand that Alfred was the man who
first introduced the jury system into England. He had
absolute power. He was the sole judge and ruler, but
on various occasions he abdicated the throne and said:
** I do not feel able to try this man, for as I look into
my heart I see that I am prejudiced. Neither will I
name men to try him, for in their selection I might also
be prejudiced. Therefore let one hundred men be called,
and from these let twelve be selected by lot, and they
shall listen to the charges and weigh the defense, and
their verdict shall be mine.**

We sometimes say that English Common Law is built
on the Roman Law, but I can not find that Alfred ever
studied the Roman Law, or ever heard of the Justinian
Code, or thought it worth while to establish a system
of jurisprudence. His government was of the simplest
sort. He respected the habits, ways and customs of the
common people, and these were the Common Law. If
the people had a footpath that was used by their
children and their parents and their grandparents, then
this path belonged to the people, and Alfred said that
even the King could not take it from them.
This deference to the innocent ways, habits and natural
rights of the people mark Alfred as supremely great,

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KING ALFRED

because a great man is one great in his sympathies.
Alfred had the imagination to put himself in the place
of the lowly and obscure.

The English love of law, system and order dates from
Alfred. The patience, kindliness, good-cheer and desire
for fair play were his, plus. He had poise, equanimity,
unfaltering faith and a courage that never grew faint.
He was as religious as Cromwell, as firm as Washington,
as stubborn as Gladstone. In him were combined the
virtues of the scholar and patriot, the efficiency of the
man of affairs with the wisdom of the philosopher. His
character, both public and private, is stainless, and his
whole life was one of enlightened and magnanimous
service to his country.

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KING ALFRED

N the age of Augustus there was one study
that was regarded as more important than
all others, and this was rhetoric, or the art of
the rhetor. The rhetor was a man whose busi-
ness it was to persuade or convince.
The public forum has its use in the very natural town-
meeting, or the powwow of savages. But in Rome it had
developed and been refined to a point where the public
had no voice, although the boasted forum still existed.
The forum was monopolized by the professional orators
hired by this political clique or that.
It was about like the political ** forum " in America
today 3S 53

The greatest man in Rome was the man who could
put up the greatest talk. So all Roman mammas and
matrons had their boys study rhetoric. The father of
Seneca had a school of oratory where rich Roman
youths were taught to mouth in orotund and gesticulate
in curves. He must have been a pretty good teacher,
for he had two extraordinary sons, one of whom is
mentioned in the Bible, and a most exemplary daughter.
^ Oratory as an end we now regard as an unworthy art.
The first requisite is to feel deeply — to have a message
— and then if you are a person of fair intelligence and
in good health, you *11 impress your hearers. But to hire
out to impress people with another's theme is to be a
pettifogger, and the genus pettifogger has nearly had
his day.

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KING ALFRED

History moves in circles. The Chicago Common Council,
weary of rhetoric, has recently declined to listen to
paid attorneys; but any citizen who speaks for himself
and his neighbors can come before the Council and
state his case.

Chief Justice Fuller has given it as his opinion that
there will come a day in America when damage-cases
will be taken care of by an automatic tribunal, without
the help of lawyers. And as a man fills out a request
for a money-order at the Post-Office, so will he file his
claim for damages, and it will have attention. The
contingent fee will yet be a misdemeanor. Also, it will
be possible for plain citizens to be able to go before a
Court of Equity and be heard without regard to law
and precedent and attorney's quillets and quibbles,
which so often hamper justice. Justice should be cheap
and easy, instead of costly and complex.
Evidently the Chief Justice had in mind the usages in
the time of King Alfred, when the barrister was an
employee of the court, and his business was to get the
facts and then explain them to the King in the fewest
p)Ossible words.

Alfred considered a paid advocate, or even a counselor,
as without the pale, and such men were never allowed
at court. If the barrister accepted a fee from a man
suing for justice, he was disbarred.
Finally, however, the practise of feeing in order to
renew the zeal of a barrister grew so that it had to be
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KING ALFRED

tolerated, because things we can't suppress we license,
and a pocket was placed on each barrister's back
between his shoulders where he could not reach it
without taking off his gown, and into this pocket clients
were allowed slyly to slip such gratuities as they could
afford 53 3S

But the general practise of the client paying the
barrister, instead of the court, was not adopted for
several hundred years later, and then it was regarded
as an expeditious move to keep down litigation and
punish the client for being fool enough not to settle his
own troubles.

In England the rudimentary pocket still survives, like
the buttons on the back of a coat, which were once used
to support the sword-belt.

In America we have done away with wigs and gowns
for attorneys, but attorneys are still regarded as
attaches of the court, even though one-half of them,
according to Judge DeCourcy of Boston, are engaged
most of the time in attempts to bamboozle and befog the
judge and jury and defeat the ends of justice. Likewise,
we still use the word ** Court," signifying the place
where lives royalty, even for the dingy office of a country
J. P., where sawdust spittoons are the bric-a-brac and
patent-office reports loom large, and justice is dispensed
with. We now also commonly call the man ** the Court/*

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KING ALFRED

LFRED was filled with a desire to educat^^
and to this end organized a school at the Ox
Ford, where his friend Asser taught. This
school was the germ of the University of Ox-
ford. Attached to this school was a farm, where the
boys were taught how to sow and plant and reap to the
best advantage. Here they also bred and raised horses
and cattle, and the care of livestock was a part of the
curriculum. It was the first College of Agriculture.
^ It comes to us as somewhat of a surprise to see how
we are now going back to simplicity, and the agricul-
tural college is being given the due and thoughtful
consideration which it deserves. Twenty years ago our
agricultural college was considered more or less of a
joke, but now that which adds greatly to the wealth of
the nation, and the happiness and well-being of the
people, is looked upon as worthy of our support and
highest respect.

Up to the time of Alfred, England had no navy. For the
government to own ships seemed quite preposterous,
since the people had come to England to stay, and were
not marauders intent on exploitation and conquest, like
the Norsemen.

But after Alfred had vanquished the Danes and they
had settled down as citizens, he took their ships,
refitted them, built more and said: ** No more marauders
shall land on these shores. If we are threatened we will
meet the enemy on the sea/*
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KING ALFRED

In a few years along came a fleet of marauding Norse.
The English ships on the lookout gave the alarm, and
England's navy put out to meet them. The enemy
were taken by surprise, and the fate that five hundred
years later was to overtake the Spanish Armada, was
theirs 53 53

From that time to this, England has had a navy that
has gradually grown in power.

Let no one imagine that peace and rest came to Alfred.
His life was a battle, for not only did he have to fight
the Danes, but he had to struggle with ignorance,
stupidity and superstition at home. To lead men out of
captivity is a thankless task. They always ask when
you take away their superstition, ** What are you
going to give us in return? ** They do not realize that
superstition is a disease, and that to give another dis-
ease in return is not nice, necessary or polite.

147

KING ALFRED

LFRED died, at the age of fifty-two, worn out
with his ceaseless labors of teaching, building,
planning, inventing and devising methods and
means for the betterment and benefit of his
people. ^ After his death, the Danes were successful,
and Canute became King of England. But he was proud
to be called an Englishman, and declared he was no
longer a Dane.

And so England captured him.

Then came the Norman William, claiming the throne
by right of succession, and successfully battling for it;
but the English people reckoned the Conqueror as of
their own blood — their kith and kin — and so he was.
He issued an edict forbidding any one to call him or
his followers ** Norman,** ** Norse '* or ** Norsemen,**
and declared there was a United England. And so he
lived and died an Englishman; and after him no ruler,
these nine hundred years, has ever sat on the throne
of the Engles by right of conquest.
Both Canute and William recognized and prized the
worth of Alfred's rule. The virtues of Alfred are the
virtues that have made it possible for the Teutonic
tribes to girdle the globe. It was Alfred who taught
the nobility of industry, service, education, patience,
loyalty, persistence, and the faith and hope that abide.
By pen, tongue, and best of all by his life, Alfred
taught the truths which we yet hold dear. And by
this sign shall ye conquer!
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ERASMUS

We see not a few mortals who, striving to emulate this

divine virtue with more zeal than success, fall into a

feeble and disjointed loquacity, obscuring the subject

and burdening the wretched ears of their hearers with a

vacant mass of words and sentences crowded together

beyond all possibility of enjoyment. And writers who

have tried to lay down the principles of this art have

gained no other result than to display their own poverty

while expounding abundance.

—Erasmus on " Preaching **

^

ERASMUS

ERASMUS

RASMUS was born in Fourteen
Hundred Sixty-six, and died in
Fifteen Hundred Thirty-six. No
thinker of his time influenced the
world more. He stood at a pivotal
point, and some say he himself was
the intellectual pivot of the Renais-
sance 53 53

The critics of the times were unanimous in denouncing
him — which fact recommends him to us.
Several Churchmen, high in power, live in letters for no
other reason than because they coupled their names with
that of Erasmus by reviling him. Let the critics take
courage — they may outwit oblivion yet, even though
they do nothing but carp. Only let them be wise, and
carp, croak, cough, cat-call and sneeze at some one who
is hitching his wagon to a star. This way immortality
lies. Erasmus was a monk who flocked by himself, and
found diversion in ridiculing monkery. Also, he was the
wisest man of his day. Wisdom is the distilled essence
of intuition, corroborated by experience. Learning is
something else. Usually, the learned man is he who has
delved deep and soared high. But few there be who
dive, that fish the murex up. Among those who soar,
the ones who come back and tell us of what they have
seen, are few. Like Lazarus, they say nothing.

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ERASMUS

Erasmus had a sense of humor. Humor is a life-preserver
and saves you from drowning when you jump ofif into a
sea of sermons. A theologian who can not laugh is apt
to explode — ^he is very dangerous. Erasmus, Luther,
Beecher, Theodore Parker, Roger Williams, Joseph
Parker — ^all could laugh. Calvin, Cotton Mather and
Jonathan Exiwards never gurgled in glee, nor chortled
softly at their own witticisms — or those of others.
Erasmus smiled. He has been called the Voltaire of his
day. What Rousseau was to Voltaire, Luther was to
Erasmus. Well did Diderot say that Erasmus laid the
egg which Luther hatched. Erasmus wrote for the
educated, the refined, the learned — Luther made his
appeal to the plain and common mind.
Luther split the power of the Pope. Erasmus thought it
a calamity to do so, because he believed that strife of
sects tended to make men lose sight of the one essential
in religion — ^harmony — and cause them simply to
struggle for victory. Erasmus wanted to trim the wings
of the papal office and file its claws — Luther would have
destroyed it. Erasmus considered the Church a very
useful and needful organization — for social reasons. It
tended to regulate life and conduct and made men
" decentable.** It should be a school of ethics, and take
a leading part in every human betterment. Man being
a gregarious animal, the congregation is in the line of
natural desire. The excuse for gathering together is
religion — let them gather. The Catholic Church is not
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ERASMUS

two thousand years old — it is ten thousand years old
and goes back to Egypt. The birth of Jesus formed
merely a psychosis in the Church's existence.
Here he parted company with Luther, who was a
dogmatist and wanted to debate his ninety-five theses.
Erasmus laughed at all religious disputations and called
them mazes that led to cloudland. Very naturally,
people said he was not sincere, since the mediocre mind
never knows that only the paradox is true. Hence
Erasmus was hated by Catholics and denounced by
Protestants.

The marvel is that the men with fetters and fagots did
not follow him with a purpose. Fifty years later he
would have been snuffed out. But at that time Rome
was so astonished to think that any one should criticize
her that she lost breath. Besides, it was an age of
laughter, of revolt, of contests of wit, of love-bouts and
love-scrapes, and the monks who lapsed were too many
to discipline. Everybody was busy with his own affairs.
Happy time!

Erasmus was part and parcel of the Italian Renaissance.
Over his head blazes, in letters that burn, the unfor-
getable date. Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two. He was a
part of the great unrest, and he helped cause the great
unrest. Every great awakening, every renaissance, is an
age of doubt. An age of conservatism is an age of moss,
of lichen, of rest, rust and ruin. We grow only as we
question. As long as we are sure that the present order

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ERASMUS

is perfect, we button our collars behind, a thing which
Columbus, Luther, Melanchthon,Erasmus, Michelangelo,
Leonardo and Gutenberg, who all lived at this one time,
never did. The year of Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two,
like the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, was
essentially ** infidelic,** just as the present age is con-
structively iconoclastic. We are tearing down our barns
to build greater. The railroadman who said, ** I throw
an engine on the scrap-heap every morning before
breakfast,** expressed a great truth. We are discarding
bad things for good ones, and good things for better ones.

154

ERASMUS

OTTERDAM has the honor of being the
birthplace of Erasmus. A storm of calumny
was directed at him during his Ufe concerning
the irregularity of his birth. ** He had no
business to be born at all,** said a proud prelate, as he
gathered his robes close around his prebendal form. But
souls knock at the gates of life for admittance, and the
fact that a man exists is proof of his right to live. The
word " illegitimate '* is not in the vocabulary of God.
If you do not know that, you have not read His instruc-
tive and amusing works.

The critics variously declared the mother of Erasmus
was a royal lady, a physician's only daughter, a kitchen-
wench, a Mother Superior — all according to the
prejudices preconceived. In one sense she was surely a
Mother Superior — let the lies neutralize one another 58
The fact is, we do not know who the mother of Erasmus
was. All we know is that she was the mother of Ersismus.
Here history halts. Her son once told Sir Thomas More
that she was married to a luckless nobody a few months
after the birth of her first baby, and amid the cares of
raising a goodly brood of nobodies on a scant allowance
of love and rye-bread, she was glad to forget her early
indiscretions. Not so the father. The debated question
of whether a man really has any parental love is
answered here.

The father of Erasmus was Gerhard von Praet, and the
child was called Gerhard Gerhards — or the son of

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ERASMUS

Gerhard. The father was a man of property and held
office under the State. At the time of the birth of the
illustrious baby, Gerhard von Praet was not married,
and it is reasonable to suppose that the reason he did
not wed the mother of his child was because she belonged
to a different social station. In any event the baby was
given the father's name, and every care and attention
was paid the tiny voyager. This father was as foolish as
most fond mothers, for he dreamed out a great career
for the motherless one, and made sundry prophecies 58
At six years of age the child was studying Latin, when
he should have been digging in a sand-pile. At eight he
spoke Dutch and French, and argued with his nurse in
Greek as to the value of buttermilk.
In the meantime the father had married and settled
down in honorable obscurity as a respectable squire.
Another account has it that he became a priest. Anyway,
the little maverick was now making head alone in a
private school.

When the lad was thirteen the father died, leaving a
will in which he provided well for the child. The amount
of property which by this will would have belonged to
our hero when he became of age would have approxi-
mated forty thousand dollars.

Happily, the trustees of the fund were law-wolves. They
managed to break the will, and then they showed the
court that the child was a waif, and absolutely devoid
of legal rights of any and every kind. He was then
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ERASMUS

committed to an orphan asylum to be given ** a right
religious education/* It *s a queer old world, Terese, and
what would have become of Gerhard Gerhards had he
fallen heir to his father's titles and estate, no man can
say. He might have accumulated girth and become an
honored burgomaster. As it was he became powder-
monkey to a monk, and scrubbed stone floors and rushed
the growler for cowled and pious prelates.
Then he did copying for the Abbe, and proved himself a
boy from Missouri Valley.

He was small, blue-eyed, fair-haired, slender, slight,
with a long nose and sharp features. ** With this nose,"
said Albrecht Durer, many years later, **he successfully
hunted down everything but heresy.**
At eighteen he became a monk and proudly had his
flaxen poll tonsured. His superior was fond of him, and
prophesied that he would become a bishop or something.
^ Children do not suffer much, nor long. God is good to
them. They slide into an environment and accept it.
This child learned to dodge the big bare feet of the
monks — got his lessons, played a little, worked his wit
against their stupidity, and actually won their admira-
tion— or as much of it as men who are alternately
ascetics and libertines can give.

It was about this time that the lad was taunted with
having no name. ** Then I *11 make one for myself,** was
his proud answer.

Having entered now upon his novitiate, he was allowed

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ERASMUS

to take a new name, and being dead to the world, the
old one was forgotten.

They called him Brother Desiderius, or the Desired One.
He then amended this Latin name with its Greek
equivalent, Erasmus, which means literally the Well-
Beloved. As to his pedigree, or lack of it, he was need-
lessly proud. It set him apart as different. He had half-
brothers and half-sisters, and these he looked upon as
strangers. When they came to see him, he said, " There
is no relationship between souls save that of the spirit.**
^ His sense of wit came in when he writes to a friend :
** Two parents are the rule; no parents the exception; a
mother but no father is not uncommon; but I had a
father and never had a mother. I was nursed by a man,
and educated by monks, all of which shows that women
are more or less of a superfluity in creation. God Himself
is a man. He had one son, but no daughters. The
cherubim are boys. All of the angels are masculine, and
so far as Holy Writ informs us, there are no women in
heaven.** 5S 3S

That it was a woman, however, to whom Erasmus
wrote this, lets him out on the severity of the argument.
He was a joker. And while women did not absorb much
of his time, we find that on his travels he often turned
aside to visit with intellectual women — no other kind
interested him, at all.

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ERASMUS

O belong to a religious order is to be owned
by it. You trade freedom for protection. The
soul of Erasmus revolted at life in a monas-
tery. He hated the typical monks — their
food, their ways of life, their sophistry, their stupidity.
To turn glutton and welcome folly as a relief from
religion, he said, was the most natural thing in the
world, when men had once started in to lead an unnat-
ural life. Good food, daintily served, only goes with a
co-ed mental regimen. Men eat with their hands, out
of a pot, unless women are present to enforce the
decencies. Women alone are a little more to be pitied
than men alone, if *t were possible.
Through emulation does the race grow. Sex puts men
and women on their good behavior.
Meui's desire for power has caused him to enslave
himself. Writes Erasmus, ** In a monastery, no one is
on his good behavior, except when there are visitors,
but I am told that this is so in families.**
The greasy, coarse cooking brought on a nice case of
dyspepsia for poor Erasmus — a complaint from which
he was never free as long as he lived. His system was
too fine for any monastic general trough, but he found
a compensation in having his say at odd times and sun-
dry. At one time we hear of his printing on a card this
legend, ** If I owned hell and a monastery, I would
sell the monastery and reside in hell.*' Thereby did
Erasmus supply General Tecumseh Sherman the germ

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ERASMUS

of a famous orphic. Sherman was a professor in a college
at Baton Rouge before the War, and evidently had
moused in the Latin classics to a purpose.
Connected with the monastery where Erasmus lived
was a printing-outfit. Our versatile young monk learned
the case, worked the ink-balls, manipulated the lever,
and evidently dispelled, in degree, the monotony of the
place by his ready pen and eloquent tongue. When he
wrote, he wrote for his ear. All was tested by reading
the matter aloud. At that time great authors were not so
wise or so clever as printers, and it fell to the lot of
Erasmus to improve upon the text of much of the copy
that was presented.

Erasmus learned to write by writing ; and among modern
prose-writers he is the very first who had a distinct
literary style. His language is easy, fluid, suggestive. His
paragraphs throw a shadow, and are pregnant with
meaning beyond what the lexicon supplies. This is
genius — to be bigger than your words.
If Erasmus had been possessed of a bit more patience
and a jigger of diplomacy, he would have been in line
for a bishopric. That thing which he praised so lavishly.
Folly, was his cause of failure and also his friend.
At twenty-six he was the best teacher and the most
clever scholar 4n the place. Also, he was regarded as a
thorn in the side of the monkery, since he refused to
take it seriously. He protested that no man ever became
a monk of his own accord — he was either thrust into a
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ERASMUS

religious order by unkind kinsmen or kicked into it by
Fate 5S 58

And then comes the Bishop of Cambray, with an attack
of literary scabies, looking for a young religieux who
could correct his manuscript. The Bishop was going to
Paris after important historical facts, and must have a
competent secretary. Only a proficient Latin and Greek
scholar would do. The head of the monastery recom-
mended Erasmus, very much as Artemus Ward vol-
unteered all of his wife's relatives for purposes of war.
^ Andrew Carnegie once, when about to start for
Europe, said to his ironmaster. Bill Jones, ** I am never
so happy or care-free. Bill, as when on board ship,
headed for Europe, and the shores of Sandy Hook fade
from sight."

And Bill solemnly replied, ** Mr. Carnegie, I can truth-
fully say for myself and fellow-workers, that we are
never so happy and care-free as when you are on board
ship, headed for Europe."

Very properly Mr. Carnegie at once raised Bill's salary
five thousand a year.

The Carthusian Brothers parted with Erasmus in pre-
tended tears, but the fact was they were more relieved
than bereaved.

And then began the travels of Erasmus.
The Bishop was of middle age, with a dash of the
cavalier in his blood, which made him prefer a saddle
to the cushions of a carriage. And so they started away

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ERASMUS

on horseback, the Bishop ahead, followed at a discreet

distance by Erasmus, his secretary; and ten paces

behind with well-loaded panniers, rode a servant as

rear-guard.

To be free and face the world and on a horse! Erasmus

lifted up his heart in a prayer of gratitude. He said

that it was the first feeling of thankfulness he had

ever experienced, and it was the first thing which

had ever come to him worth gratitude.

And so they started for Paris.

Erasmus looked back and saw the monastery, where he

had spent ten arduous years, fade from view.

It was the happiest moment he had ever known. The

world lay beyond.

162

ERASMUS

HE Bishop of Cambray introduced Erswmus
to a mode of life for which he was eminently
fitted. It consisted in traveling, receiving
honors, hospitality and all good things in a
material way, and giving his gracious society in return.
Doors flew open on the approach of the good Bishop.
Everywhere he went a greeting was assured. He was a
Churchman — that was enough. Erasmus shared in the
welcomes, for he was handsome in face and figure, had a
ready tongue, and could hold his own with the best 58
Europe was then dotted with monasteries, nunneries
and other church institutions. Their remains are seen
there yet — one is really never out of sight of a steeple.
But the exclusive power of the Church is gone, and in
many places there are only ruins where once were
cloisters, corridors, chapels, halls and gardens teeming
with life and industry.

The ** missions ** of California were founded on the
general plan of the monasteries of Europe. They afforded
a lodging for the night — a resting-place for travelers —
and were a radiatory center of education — at leetst all
of the education that then existed.
In California these ** missions ** were forty miles apart
— one day*s journey. In France, Italy and Germany
they were, say, ten miles apart. Between them, trudged
or rode on horseback or in carriages, a picturesque array
of pilgrims, young and old, male and female. To go
anywhere and be at home everywhere, this was the

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ERASMUS

happy lot of a church dignitary. ^ The parts in church
institutions were interchangeable; and by a system of
migration, life was made agreeable, and reasonable
honesty was assured. I have noticed that certain
Continental banking institutions, with branches in
various cities, keep their cashiers rotating. The idea was
gotten from Rome. Rome was very wise — ^her policies
were the crystallizations of the world-wisdom of cen-
turies. The church-militant battle-cry, ** The world for
Christ,*' simply means man's lust for ownership, with
Christ as an excuse. If ever there was a man-made
institution, it is the Church. To control mankind has
been her desire, and the miracle is that, with a promise
of heaven, a threat of hell, and a firm grip on temporal
power — social and military — she was ever induced par-
tially to loosen her grip. To such men as Savonarola,
Luther and Erasmus, do we owe our freedom. These men
cared more for truth than for power, and their influence
was to disintegrate the ankylosis of custom and make
men think. And a thought is mental dynamite. No
wonder the Church has always feared and hated a
thinker! 3S 33

The Bishop of Cambray was not a thinker. Fenelon,
who was later to occupy his office, was to make the
bishopric of Cambray immortal. Conformists die, but
heretics live on forever. They are men who have
redeemed the cross and rendered the gallows glorious.

164

ERASMUS

ND so the Bishop of Cambray and his little
light-haired secretary fared forth to fame
and fortune — the Bishop to be remembered
because he had a secretary, and the secre-
tary to be remembered because he grew into a great
teacher 3S 5S

At each stopping-place the Bishop said mass — the
workers, students and novitiates quitting their tasks
to hear the words of encouragement from the lips of
the great man. Occasionally Erasmus Wcis pushed for-
ward to say a few words, by the Bishop, who had to
look after his own personal devotions. The assembled
friends liked the young man — he was so bright and
witty and free from cant. They even laughed out loud,
and so, often two smiles were made to grow where
there were no smiles before.

Leisurely they rode — stopping at times for several days
at places where the food and drink were at their best,
and the society sulphide. At nunneries and monasteries
were always guest-chambers for the great, and they
were usually occupied.

Thus it was that every church-house was a sort of
university, depending of course on the soul-size of the
Superior or Abbe. These constant journeyings and
pilgrimages served in lieu of the daily paper, the
Western Union Telegraph, and the telephone. Things
have slipped back, I fear me, for now Mercury merely
calls up his party on the long-distance, instead of

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making a personal visit — the Angel Gabriel as well.
We save time, but we miss the personal contact.
The monastic impulse was founded on a human need.
Like most good things, it has been sadly perverted ; but
the idea of a sanctuary for stricken souls — a place of
refuge, where simplicity, service and useful endeavor
rule — ^will never die from out the human heart. The
hospice stands for hospitality, but we have now only a
hotel and a hospital.

The latter stands for iodoform, carbolic acid and formal-
dehyde; the former often means gold, glitter, gluttony
and concrete selfishness, with gout on one end, paresis at
the other and Bright*s Disease between.
The hospice was a part of the monastery. It was a home
for the homeless. There met men of learning — men of
wit — men of brains and brawn. You entered and were
at home. There was no charge — you merely left some-
thing for the poor.

Any man who has the courage, and sufficient faith in
humanity to install the hospice system in America will
reap a rich reward. If he has the same faith in his guests
that Judge Lindsey has in his bad boys, he will succeed;
but if he hesitates, defers, doubts, and begins to plot
and plan, the Referee in Bankruptcy will beckon.
The early universities grew out of the monastic impulse.
Students came and went, and the teachers were a part
of a great itinerancy. Man is a migratory animal. His
evolution has come about through change of environ-
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ERASMUS

ment. Transplantation changes weeds into roses, and
the forebears of all the products of our greenhouses and
gardens once grew in hedgerows or open fields, choked
by unkind competition or trampled beneath the feet of
the heedless.

The advantage of university life is in the transplanta-
tion. Get the boy out of his home environment; sever
the cord that holds him to his ** folks **; let him meet
new faces, see new sights, hear new sermons, meet new
teachers, and his efforts at adjustment will work for
growth. Alexander Humboldt was right — one year at
college is safer than four. One year inspires you — four
may get you pot-bound with pedant prejudice.
The university of the future will be industrial — all may
come and go. All men will be university men, and thus
the pride in an imaginary proficiency will be diluted
to a healthful attenuation. To work and to be useful —
not merely to memorize and recite — ^will be the only
initiation 33 58

The professors will be interchangeable, and the rotation
of intellectual crops will work for health, harmony and
effectiveness.

The group, or college, will be the unit, not the family.
The college was once a collection of men and women
grouped for a mutual intellectual, religious or economic
good 5S 5S

To this group or college idea will we return.
Man is a gregarious animal, and the Christ-thought of

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ERASMUS

giving all, eoid receiving all, some day in the near future
will be found practical. The desire for exclusive owner-
ship must be sloughed.

Universities devoted to useful work — art in its highest
sense: head, hand and heart — ^will yet dot the civilized
world. The hospice will return higher up the scale, and
the present use of the word ** hospitality ** will be
drowned in its pink tea, choked with cheese-wafers,
rescued from the nervous clutch of the meoiaging mama,
and the machinations of the chaperone. A society built
on the sands of silliness must give way to the universal
university, and the strong, healthful, helpful, honest
companionship and comradeship of men and women
prevail 5S Si

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ERASMUS

HE objective point of the Bishop was the
University of Paris.

Here in due time, after their lingering ride
from Holland, the Bishop and his secretary
arrived. They settled down to literary work ; and in odd
hours the beauty and wonder of Paris became familiar
to Erasmus. The immediate task completed, the Bishop
proposed going home, and thought, of course, his
secretary was a fixture and would go with him. But
Erasmus had evolved ideas concerning his own worth.
He had already collected quite a little circle of pupils
about him, and these he held by his glowing personality.
At this time the vow of poverty was looked upon lightly.
And anyway, poverty is a comparative term. There
were monks who always trudged afoot with staff and
bag, but not so our Erasmus. He was Bishop of the
Exterior 38 3S

The Bishop of Cambray, on parting with Erasmus,
thought so much of him that he presented him with the
horse he rode.

Erasmus used to take short excursions about Paris,
taking with him a student and often two, as servants or
attendants. Teaching then was mostly on an indepen-
dent basis, each pupil picking his tutors and paying
them direct.

Among other pupils whom Erasmus had at Paris was a
young Englishman by the name of Lord Mountjoy.
A great affection arose between these two, and when

169

ERASMUS

Lord Mountjoy returned to England he was accom-
panied by Erasmus,
-y At London, Erasmus met on absolute equality many of
^ the learned men of England. We hear of his dining at
the house of the Lord Mayor of London, and there
meeting Sir Thomas More and crossing swords with
that worthy in wordy debate.

Erasmus seems to have carried the ** New Humanism "
into England. It has been said that the world Wcts dis-
covered in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two, but Man was
not discovered until Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six.
This is hardly literal truth, since in Fourteen Hundred
Ninety-two, there was a theologico-scientific party of
young men in all of the European Universities who were
reviving the Greek culture, and with it arose the idea
of the dignity and worth of Man. To this movement
Erasmus brought the enthusiasm of his nature. Perhaps
he did as much as any other to fan the embers which
grew into a flame called ** The Reformation.**
He constantly ridiculed the austerities, pedantry, prig-
gishness and sciolism of the old-time Churchmen, and
when a new question came up, he asked, ** What good
is there in it? *'

Everything was tested by him in the light of common-
sense. What end does it serve and how is humanity to
be served or benefited by it ?

(Thus the good of humanity, not the glory of God, was
the shibboleth of this rising party.
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ERASMUS

Erasmus gave lectures and taught at Cambridge,
Oxford and London.

Italy had been the objective point of his travels, but
England had, for a time, turned him aside. In the year
Fifteen Hundred, Erasmus landed at Calais, saddled his
horse, and started southward, visiting, writing, teach-
ing, lecturing, as he went. The stimulus of meeting new
people and seeing new scenes, all tended toward intel-
lectual growth.

The genus monk made mendicancy a fine art, and Eras-
mus was heir to most of the instincts of the order. His
associations with the laity were mostly with the nobility
or those with money. He was not slow in asking for
what he wanted, whether it was a fur-lined cloak, a
saddle, top riding-boots, a horse, or a prayer-book. He
made no apologies — but took as his divine right all that
he needed. And he justified himself in taking what he
needed by the thought that he gave all he had. He sup-
plied Sir Thomas More the germ of ** Utopia,*' for
Erasmus pictured again and again an ideal society
where all would have enough, and none suffer from
either want or surfeit — a society in which all would be
at home wherever they went.

Had Erasmus seen fit to make England his home, his
head, too, would have paid the forfeit, as did the head
that wrote ** Utopia.** What an absurd use to make of a
head — to separate it from the man's body!
Italy received Erasmus with the same royal welcome

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ERASMUS

that Elngland had supplied. Scholars who knew the
Greek and Roman classics were none too common. Most
monks stopped with the writings of the saints, as South
Americans balk at long division.

Eraismus could illumine an initial, bind a book, give
advice to printers, lecture to teachers, give lessons on
rhetoric and oratory, or entertain the ladies with
recitations from the Iliad and the Odyssey.
So he went riding back and forth, stopping at cities and
towns, nunneries and monasteries, until his name
became a familiar one to every scholar of England,
Germany and Italy. Scholarly, always a learner, always
a teacher, gracious, direct, witty, men began to divide
on an Erasmus basis. There were two parties: those for
Erasmus and those against him.

In Fifteen Hundred Seventeen, came Luther with his
bombshells of defiance. This fighting attitude was far
from Erstsmus — his weapons were words. Between bouts
with prelates, Luther sent a few thunderbolts at
Ersismus, accusing him of vacillation and cowardice.
Elrasmus replied with dignity, and entered into a
lengthy dispute with Melanchthon, Luther's friend, on
the New Humanism which was finding form in revo-
lution Si 5S

Erasmus prophesied that by an eetsy process of evolu-
tion, through education, the monasteries would all
become schools and workshops. He would not destroy
them, but convert them into something different. He
172

ERASMUS

fell into disfavor with the CathoUcs, and was invited by
Henry the Eighth to come to England and join the new
religious regime. But this English Catholicism was not
to the liking of Erasmus. What he desired was to reform
the Church, not to destroy it or divide it.
His affairs were becoming critical: monasteries where he
had once been welcomed now feared to have him come
near, lest they should be contaminated and entangled.
It was rumored that warrants of arrest were out. He
was invited to go to Rome and explain his position 5S
Erasmus knew better than to acknowledge receipt of
the letter. He headed his horse for Switzerland, the land
of liberty. At Basel he stopped at the house of Froben,
the great printer and publisher. He put his horse in the
barn, unsaddled him, and said, ** Froben, I Ve come to
stay." 5S 58

173

ERASMUS

WAS mousing around the other day in a book
that Is somewhat disjointed and disconnected,
and yet interesting — ** The Standard Dic-
tionary " — when I came across the word
** scamp." It is a handy word to fling, and I am not sure
but that it has been gently tossed once or twice in my
direction. Condemnation is usually a sort of subtle
flattery, so I 'm not sad. To scamp means to cut short,
to be superficial, slipshod, careless, indifferent — to say,
** Let 'er go, who cares — this is good enough! "If any-
body ever was a stickler for honest work, I am that
bucolic party. I often make things so fine that only one
man out of ten thousand can buy them, and I have to
keep 'em myself.

You know that, when you get an idea in your head, how
everything you read contains allusions to the same
thing. Knowledge is mucilaginous. Well, next day after
I was looking up that pleasant word ** scamp," I was
reading in the Amusing Works of Erasmus, when I ran
across the word again, but spelled in Dutch, thus,
** schamp." Now Erasmus was a successful author, and
he was also the best authority on paper, inks, bindings,
and general bookmaking in Italy, Holland or Germany.
Being a lover of learning, and listening to the lure of
words, he never wallowed in wealth. But in his hunt for
ideas he had a lot of fun. Kipling says, ** There is no
hunt equal to a man hunt." But Kip is wrong — to chase
a thought is twice the sport. Erasmus chased ideas, and
174

ERASMUS

very naturally the preachers chased Erasmus — out of
England, through France, down to Italy and then he
found refuge at Basel with Froben, the great Printer
and Publisher.

Up in Frankfort was a writer-printer, who, not being
able to answer the arguments of Erasmus, called him
bad names. But this gentle pen-pusher in Frankfort,
who passed his vocabulary at Froben's proofreader,
Erasmus in time calls a ** schamp,'* because he used
cheap paper, cheap ink and close margins. Soon after,
the word was carried to England and spelled ** scamp *'
— a man who cheats in quality, weight, size and count.
But the first use merely meant a printer who scamps his
margins and so cheats on paper. I am sorry to see that
Erasmus imitated his enemies and at times was ambi-
dextrous in the use of the literary stinkpot. His vocabu-
lary was equal to that of Muldoon. Erasmus refers to
one of his critics as a ** scenophylax-stikken,** and
another he calls a ** schnide enchologion-schistosomus."
And perhaps they may have been — I really do not know,
^ But as an authority on books Erasmus can still be
read. He it was who fixed the classic page margin —
twice as wide at the top as on the inside; twice as wide
at the outside as the top ; twice as wide at the bottom as
at the side. And any printer who varies from this dis-
plays his ignorance of proportion. Erasmus says, ** To
use poor paper marks the decline of taste, both in
printer and in patron.'* After the death of Erasmus,

175

ERASMUS

Froben's firm failed because they got to making things
cheap. ** Compete in quality, not in price,** was the
working motto of Erasmus.

All of the great bookmaking centers languished when
they began to scamp. That worthy wordissimus at
Frankfort who called Erasmus names gave up business
and then the ghost, and Erasmus wrote his epitaph,
and thus supplied Benjamin Franklin an idea — ** Here
lies an old book, its cover gone, its leaves torn, the
worms at work on its vitals."

The wisdom of doing good work still applies, just as it
did in the days of Erasmus.

Erasmus proved a very valuable acquisition to Froben.
He became general editor and literary adviser of this
great publishing-house, which was then the most
important in the world.

Besides his work as editor, Erasmus also stood sponsor
for numerous volumes which we now know were
written by literary nobodies, his name being placed on
the title-page for commercial reasons.
At that time and for two hundred years later, the matter
of attributing a book to this man or that was considered
a trivial affair. Piracies were prevalent. All printers
revised the work of classic authors if they saw fit, and
often they were specially rewarded for it by the Church.
It was about this time that some one slipped that
paragraph into the works of Josephus about Jesus.
The "Annals " of Tacitus were similarly doctored, if in
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ERASMUS

fact they were not written entire, during the Sixteenth
Century. It will be remembered that the only two
references in contemporary literature to Jesus are those
in Josephus and Tacitus, and these the Church proudly
points to yet.

During the last few years of his life Ereismus accumu-
lated considerable property. By his will he devised that
this money should go to educate certain young men and
women, grandchildren and nephews and nieces of his
old friend, Johann Froben. He left no money for masses,
after the usual custom of Churchmen, and during his
last illness was not attended by a priest. For several
years before his death he made no confessions and very
seldom attended church service. He said, ** I am much
more proud of being a printer than a priest."
A statue of Erasmus in bronze adorns one of the public
squares in Rotterdam, and Basel and Freiburg have
honored themselves, and him also, in like manner.
^ As a sample of the subtle and keen literary style of
Erasmus, I append the following from ** In Praise of
Folly:"

The happiest times of life are youth and old age, and
this for no reason but that they are the times most
completely under the rule of folly, and least controlled
by wisdom. It is the child's freedom from wisdom that
makes it so charming to us; we hate a precocious child.
So women owe their charm, and hence their power, to
their ** folley,'* that is, to their obedience to the impulse.
But if. perchance, a woman wants to be thought wise,

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ERASMUS

she only succeeds in being doubly a fool, as if one should
train a cow for the prize-ring, a thing wholly against
Nature. A woman will be a woman, no matter what
mask she wear, and she ought to be proud of her folly
and make the most of it.

Is not Cupid, that first father of all religion, is not he
stark blind, that he can not himself distinguish of colors,
so he would make us as mope-eyed in judging falsely of
all love concerns, and wheedle us into a thinking that
we are always in the right? Thus every Jack sticks to
his own Jill ; every tinker esteems his own trull ; and the
hobnailed suitor prefers Joan the milkmaid before any
of milady's daughters. These things are true, and are
ordinarily laughed at, and yet, however ridiculous they
seem, it is hence only that all societies receive their
cement and consolidation.

Fortune we still find favoring the blunt, and flushing
the forward; strokes smooth up fools, crowning all
their undertakings with success ; but wisdom makes her
followers bashful, sneaking and timorous, and therefore
you commonly see that they are reduced to hard shifts;
must grapple with poverty, cold and hunger; must lie
recluse, despised, and unregarded; while fools roll in
money, are advanced to dignities and offices, and in a
word have the whole world at command. If any one
thinks it happy to be a favorite at court, and to manage
the disposal of places and preferments, alas, this happi-
ness is so far from being attainable by wisdom, that the
very suspicion of it would put a stop to advancement.
Has any man a mind to raise himself a good estate?
Alas, what dealer in the world would ever get a far-
thing, if he be so wise as to scruple at perjury, blush at a
178

ERASMUS

lie, or stick at a fraud and overreaching? ^ It is the
public charter of all divines, to mold and bend the
sacred oracles till they comply with their own fancy,
spreading them (as Heaven by its Creator) like a
curtain, closing together, or drawing them back, as
they please. Thus, indeed. Saint Paul himself minces
and mangles some citations he makes use of, and seems
to wrest them to a different sense from what they were
first intended for, as is confessed by the great linguist.
Saint Hieron. TTius when that apostle saw at Athens
the inscription of the altar, he draws from it an argu-
ment for the proof of the Christian religion ; but leaving
out great parts of the sentence, which perhaps if fully
recited might have prejudiced his cause, he mentions
only the last two words, namely, ** To the Unknown
God*'; and this, too, not without alteration, for the
whole inscription runs thus: ** To the Gods of Asia,
Europe, and Africa, to all Foreign and Unknown Gods."
^ *T is an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant
you, that our young divines, by leaving out four or five
words in a place and putting a false construction on the
rest, can make any passage serviceable to their own
purpose; though from the coherence of what went
before, or follows after, the genuine meaning appears
to be either wide enough, or perhaps quite contradictory
to what they would thrust and impose upon it. In which
knack the divines are grown now so expert that the
lawyers themselves begin to be jealous of an encroach-
ment on what was formerly their sole privilege and
practise. And indeed what can they despair of proving,
since the forementioned commentator did upon a text
of Saint Luke put an interpretation no more agreeable

179

ERASMUS

to the meaning or the place than one contrary quality
is to another.

But because it seemed expedient that man, who was born
for the transaction of business, should have so much wis-
dom as should fit and capacitate him for the discharge
of his duty herein, and yet lest such a measure as is req-
uisite for this purpose might prove too dangerous
and fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, and pre-
scribed this infallible receipt of taking a wife, a creature
so harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient,
as might mollify and make pliable the stiffness and
morose humor of man. Now that which made Plato
doubt under what genus to rank woman, whether
among brutes or rational creatures, was only meant to
denote the extreme stupidness and Folly of that sex, a
sex so unalterably simple that for any one of them to
thrust forward and reach at the name of wise, is but to
make themselves the more remarkable fools, such an
endeavor being but a swimming against the stream,
nay, the turning the course of Nature, the bare attempt-
ing whereof is as extravagant as the eflFecting of it is
impossible: for as it is a trite proverb, that an ape will
be an ape, though clad in purple, so a woman will be a
woman, that is, a fool, whatever disguise she takes up.
And yet there is no reason women should take it amiss
to be thus charged, for if they do but rightly consider,
they will find to Folly they are beholden for those
endowments wherein they so far surpass and excel
Man ; as first for their unparalleled beauty, by the charm
whereof they tyrannize over the greatest of tyrants;
for what is it but too great a smatch of wisdom that
makes men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough and
180

ERASMUS

prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winter or old age,
while women have such dainty, smooth cheeks, such a
low, gentle voice, and so pure a complexion, as if Nature
had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry
and comeliness? Besides, what greater or juster aim
and ambition have they than to please their husbands?
In order whereunto they garnish themselves with paint,
washes, curls, perfumes, and all other mysteries of
ornament ; yet, after all, they become acceptable to them
only for their Folly. Wives are always allowed their
humor, yet it is only in exchange for titillation and
pleasure, which indeed are but other names for Folly;
as none can deny, who consider how a man must dandle,
and kittle, and play a hundred little tricks for his help-
mate 5S 33

But now some blood-chilled old men, that are more for
wine than wenching, will pretend that in their opinion
the greatest happiness consists in feasting and drinking.
Grant it be so; yet certainly in the most luxurious
entertainments it is Folly must give the sauce and relish
to the daintiest delicacies ; so that if there be no one of
the guests naturally fool enough to be played upon by
the rest, they must procure some comical buffoon, that
by his jokes and flouts and blunders shall make the
whole company split themselves with laughing; for to
what purpose were it to be stuffed and crammed with
so many dainty bits, savory dishes, and toothsome
rarities, if after all this epicurism, the eyes, the ears,
and the whole mind of man, were not so well foisted
and relieved with laughing, jesting, and such like diver-
tisements, which, like second courses, serve for the pro-
moting of digestion? And as to all those shoeing-horns

181

ERASMUS

of drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the
throwing high jinks, the filUng of bumpers, the drinking
two in a hand, the beginning of mistresses* healths ; and
then the roaring out of drunken catches, the calUng in
a fiddler, the leading out every one his lady to dance,
and such like riotous pastimes — these were not taught or
dictated by any of the wise men of Greece, but of
Gojtham rather, being my invention, and by me pre-
scribed as the best preservative of health : each of which,
the more ridiculous it is, the more welcome it finds.
And indeed, to jog sleepingly through the world, in a
dumpish, melancholy posture, can not properly be said
to Hve 3i 58

182

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

There is something in human nature which always
makes people reward merit, no matter under what
color of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that it is
the visible, the tangible, that goes a long way in soften-
ing prejudices. The actual sight of a good house that a
Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of
discussion about a house that he ought to build, or
perhaps could build. The individual who can do some-
thing that the world wants done will, in the end, make

his way regardless of his race.

— Booker T. IVashingion

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

HIS is a story about a Negro. The
story has the peculiarity of being
true. The man was born a slave in
Virginia. His mother was a slave,
and was thrice sold in the market-
place. This man is Booker T. Wash-
ington 53 S&

The name Booker was a fanciful
one given to the lad by playmates on account of his
love for a certain chance dog-eared spelling-book.
Before this he was only Mammy's Pet. The T. stood for
nothing, but later a happy thought made it Taliaferro.
^ Most Negroes, fresh from slavery, stood sponsor to
themselves, and chose the name Washington; if not
this, then Lincoln, Clay or Webster.
This lad when but a child, being suddenly asked for
his name, exclaimed, ** Washington,*' and stuck to it.
^ The father of this boy was a white man; but children
always take the status of the mother, so Booker T.
Washington is a Negro, and proud of it, as he should be,
for he is standard by performance, even if not by
pedigree 53 53

This Negro's father is represented by the sign x. By
remaining in obscurity the fond father threw away his
one chance for immortality. We do not even know his
name, his social position, or his previous condition of

185

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

turpitude. We assume he was happily married and
respectable. Concerning him legend is silent and fable
dumb. As for the child, we are not certain whether he
was born in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-eight or Eighteen
Hundred Fifty-nine, and we know not the day or the
month. There were no signs in the East.
The mother Uved in a log cabin of one room, say ten by
twelve. This room was also a kitchen, for the mother
was cook to the farmhands of her owner. There were no
windows and no floor in the cabin save the hard-trodden
clay. There were a table, a bench and a big fireplace.
There were no beds, and the children at night simply
huddled and cuddled in a pile of straw and rags in the
corner. Doubtless they had enough food, for they ate
the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table — ^who,
by the way, was n't so very rich.

One of the earliest recollections of Black Baby Booker
was of being awakened in the middle of the night by his
mother to eat fried chicken. Imagine the picture — ^it is
past midnight. No light in the room save the long,
flickering streaks that dance on the rafters. Outside the
wind makes mournful, sighing melody. In the corner
huddled the children, creeping close together with inter-
twining arms to get the warmth of each little half-
naked body.

The dusky mother moves swiftly, deftly, half-frightened
at her task.

She has come in from the night with a chicken I Where
186

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

did she get it? Hush! Where do you suppose oppressed
colored^ people get chickens ?

She picks the bird — ^prepares it for the skillet — ^fries it
over the coals. And then when it is done just right,
Maryland style, this mother full of mother-love, an
ingredient which God never omits, shakes each little
piccaninny into wakefulness, and gives him the for-
bidden dainty-<lrumstick, wishbone, gizzard, white
meat, or the part that went through the fence last —
anything but the neck.

Feathers, bones, waste are thrown into the fireplace,
and what the village editor calls the " devouring ele-
ment '* hides all trace of the crime. Then all lie down to
sleep, until the faint flush of pink comes into the East,
and jocund day stands tiptoe on the mountain-tops.

187

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

HIS ex-slave remembers a strange and trying
time, when all of the colored folk on the
plantation were notified to assemble at the
" big house." They arrived and stood around
in groups, waiting and wondering, talking in whispers.
The master came out, and standing on the veranda
read from a paper in a tremulous voice. Then he told
them that they were all free, and shook hands with each.
Everybody cried. However, they were very happy in
spite of the tears, for freedom to them meant heaven —
a heaven of rest. Yet they bore only love towards their
former owners.

Most of them began to wander — they thought they had
to leave their old quarters. In a few days the wisest
came back and went to work just as usual. Booker T.*s
mother quit work for just half a day.
But in a little while her husband arrived — a colored man
to whom she had been married years before, and who
had been sold and sent away. Now he came and took
her and the little monochrome brood, and they all
started away for West Virginia, where they heard that
colored men were hired to work in coalmines and were
paid wages in real money.

It took months and months to make the journey. They
carried all their belongings in bundles. They had no
horses — no cows — no wagon — they walked. If the
weather was pleasant they slept out of doors; if it
rained they sought a tobacco-shed, a barn, or the
188

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

friendly side of a straw-stack. For food they depended
on a little cornmeal they carried, with which the mother
made pone-cakes in the ashes of a campfire. Kind
colored people on the way replenished the meal-bag, for
colored people are always generous to the hungry and
needy if they have anything to be generous with. Then
Providence sent stray, ownerless chickens their way, at
times, just as the Children of Israel were fed on quails
in the wilderness. Once they caught a possum — ^and
there was a genuine banquet, where the children ate
until they were tight as drums.

Finally they reached the promised land of West Virginia,
and at the little village of Maiden, near Charleston, where
a man by the name of John Brown was hanged, they
stopped, for here were the coalmine and the salt-works
where colored men were hired and paid in real money.
^ Booker's stepfather found a job, and he also found a job
for little Booker. They had nothing to live on until pay-
day, so the kind man who owned the mine allowed them
to get things at the store on credit. This w£is a brand-
new experience — and no doubt they bought a few things
they did not need, for prices and values were absolutely
out of their realm. Besides, they did not know how much
wages they were to get, neither could they figure the
prices of the things they bought. At any rate, when pay-
day came they were still in debt, so they saw no real
money — certainly little Booker at this time of his life
never did,

189

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

ENERAL LEWIS RUFFNER owned the
salt-works and the coalmine where little
Booker worked. He was stern, severe, strict.
But he believed Negroes were human beings,
and there were those then who disputed the proposition.
^ Ruffner organized a night-school for his helpers, and
let a couple of his bookkeepers teach it. At this time
there was not a colored person in the neighborhood who
could spell cat, much less write his name. A few could
count five. Booker must have been about ten years old
when one day he boasted a bit of his skill in mathe-
matics. The foreman told him to count the loads of coal
as they came out of the mine. The boy started in
bravely, ** One — two — three — ^four — dere goes one, dere
goes anoder, anoder, anoder, anoder, anoder! "
The foreman laughed.

The boy was abashed, then chagrined. ** Send me to the
night-school and in a month I *11 show you how to
count! " 58 5S

The foreman wrote the lad an order which admitted
him to the night-school.

But now there was another difficulty — the boy worked
until nine o*clock at night, the last hour's work being to
sweep out the office. The night-school began at nine
o'clock and it was two miles away.
The lad scratched his head and thought and thought. A
great idea came to him — he would turn the office clock
ahead half an hour. He could then leave at nine o'clock,
190

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

and by running part of the way could get to school at
exactly nine o'clock.

The scheme worked for two days, when one of the
clerks in the office said that a spook was monkeying
with the clock. They tried the plan of locking the case,
and all was well.

Booker must have been about twelve years old, goin*
on thirteen, when one day as he lay on his back in the
coalmine, pushing out the broken coal with his feet, he
overheard two men telling of a very wonderful school
where colored people were taught to read, write and
cipher — also, how to speak in public. The scholars were
allowed to work part of the time to pay for their board.
^ The lad crawled close in the darkness and listened to
the conversation. He caught the names ** Hampton **
and "Armstrong.'* Whether Armstrong was the place
and Hampton was the name of the man, he could not
make out, but he clung to the names.
Here was a school for colored people — he would go
there! That night he told his mother about it. She
laughed, patted his kinky head, and indulged him in his
dream 3S S&

She was only a poor black woman; she could not spell
ab, nor count to ten, but she had a plan for her boy —
he would some day be a preacher.

This was the very height of her imagination — a preacher!
Beyond this there was nothing in human achievement.
The night-school came after a day of fourteen hours*

191

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

work. Little Booker sat on a bench, his feet dangling
about a foot from the floor. As he sat there one night
trying hard to drink in knowledge, he went to sleep. He
nodded, braced up, nodded again, and then pitched
over in a heap on the floor, to the great amusement of
the class, and his own eternal shame.
The next day, however, as he was feeling very sorrowful
over his sad experience, he heard that Mrs. Ruffner
wanted a boy for general work at the big house.
Here was a chance. Mrs. Ruffner was a Vermont
Yankee, which meant that she had a great nose for
dirt, and would not stand for a ** sassy nigger." Her
reputation had gone abroad, and of how she pinched
the ears of her ** help,** and got them up at exactly a
certain hour, and made them use soap and water at
least once a day, and even compelled them to use a
toothbrush ; all this was history, well defined.
Booker said he could please her, even if she was a
Yankee. He applied for the job and got it, with wages
fixed at a dollar a week, with a promise of twenty-five
cents extra every week, if he did his work without
talking back and breaking a tray of dishes.

192

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

EN I US! No hovel is safe from it!" says
Whistler 5S 3S

Genius consists in doing the right thing with-
out being told more than three times.
Booker silently studied the awful Yankee woman to
see what she really wanted. He finally decided that she
desired her servants to have clean skins, fairly neat
clothing, do things promptly, finish the job and keep
still when they had nothing to say.
He set himself to please her — and he did.
She loaned him books, gave him a lead-pencil, and
showed him how to write with a pen without smearing
his hands and face with ink.

He told her of his dream and asked about Armstrong
and Hampton. She told him that Armstrong was the
man and Hampton the place.

At last he got her consent to leave and go to Hampton.
fl When he started she gave him a comb, a toothbrush,
two handkerchiefs and a pair of shoes. He had been
working for her for a year, and she thought, of course,
he saved his wages. He never told her that his money
had gone to keep the family, because his stepfather had
been on a strike and therefore out of work.
So the boy started away for Hampton. It was five hun-
dred miles away. He did n't know how far five hundred
miles is — nobody does unless he has walked it.
He had three dollars, so he gsiily paid for a seat in the
stage. At the end of the first day he was forty miles

193

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

from home and out of money. He slept In a barn, and a
colored woman handed him a ham-bone and a chunk
of bread out of the kitchen-window, and looked the
other way.

He trudged on east — always and forever east — towards
the rising sun.

He walked weeks — months — ^years, he thought. He
- kept no track of the days. He carried his shoes as a
matter of economy.

Finally he sold the shoes for four dollars to a man who
paid him ten cents cash down, and promised to pay the
rest when they should meet at Hampton. Nearly forty
years have passed and they have never met.
On he walked — on and on — east, and always forever
east 53 si

He reached the city of Richmond, the first big city he
had ever seen. The wide streets — the sidewalks — the
street-lamps entranced him. It was just like heaven.
But he was hungry and penniless, and when he looked
wistfully at a pile of cold fried chicken on a street-
stand and asked the price of a drumstick, at the same
time telling he had no money, he discovered he was not
in heaven at all. He was called a lazy nigger and told to
move on.

Later he made the discovery that a ** nigger " is a
colored person who has no money.
He pulled the piece of rope that served him for a belt
a little tighter, and when no one was looking, crawled

194

i

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

under a sidewalk and went to sleep, disturbed only by

the trampling overhead.

When he awoke he saw he was near the dock, where a

big ship pushed its bowsprit out over the street. Men

were unloading bags and boxes from the boat. He ran

down and asked the mate if he could help. ** Yes! " was

the gruflF answer.

He got in line and went staggering under the heavy

loads 53 33

He was little, but strong, and best of all, willing, yet he

reeled at the work.

** Have you had any breakfast? Yes, you liver-colored

boy — you, I say, have you had your breakfast?" 53

** No, sir,** said the boy; ** and no supper last night nor

dinner yesterday! '*

** Well, I reckoned as much. Now you take this quarter

and go over to that stand and buy you a drumstick, a

cup of coffee and two fried cakes! "

The lad did n't need urging. He took the money in his

palm, went over to the man who the night before had

called him a lazy nigger, and showing the silver, picked

out his piece of chicken.

The man hastened to wait on him, and said it was a

fine day and hoped he was well.

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

RRIVING at Hampton, this colored boy, who
had tramped the long, weary miles, stood
abashed before the big brick building which
he knew was Hampton Institute.
He was so little — the place was so big — by what right
could he ask to be admitted ?

Finally he boldly entered, and in a voice meant to be
firm, but which was very shaky, said, ** I am here! *'
and pointed to the bosom of his hickory shirt.
The Yankee woman motioned him to a chair. Negroes
coming there were plentiful. Usually they wanted to
live the Ideal Life. They had a call to preach — and the
girls wanted to be music-teachers.
The test was simple and severe: would they and could
they do one useful piece of work well ?
Booker sat and waited, not knowing that his patience
was being put to the test.

Then Miss Priscilla, in a hard, Neill Burgess voice,
** guessed '* that the adjoining recitation-room needed
sweeping and dusting. She handed Booker a broom and
dust-cloth, motioned to the room, and went away.
Oho ! Little did she know her lad. The colored boy smiled
to himself — sweeping and dusting were his specialties —
he had learned the trade from a Yankee woman from
Vermont! He smiled.

Then he swept that room — ^moved every chair, the
table, the desk. He dusted each piece of furniture four
times. He polished each rung and followed around the
196

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

baseboard on hands and knees. ^ Miss Priscilla came
back — ^pushed the table around and saw at once that
the dirt had not been concealed beneath it. She took
out her handkerchief and wiped the table top, then the
desk 5S 5S

She turned, looked at the boy, and her smile met his
half-suppressed triumphant grin.
** You *11 do," she said.

197

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

ENERAL SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG, the
founder of Hampton Institute, and the grand-
father of Tuskegee, was a white man who
fought the South valiantly and well.
He seems about the only man in the North who, at the
close of the war, clearly realized that the war had just
begun — that the real enemies were not subdued^ and
that these enemies were ignorance, superstition and
incompetence.

The pitiable condition of four million human beings,
flung from slavery into freedom, thrown upon their own
resources, with no thought of responsibility, and with
no preparation for the change, meant for them only
another kind of slavery.

General Armstrong's heart went out to them — he
desired to show them how to be useful, helpful, self-
reliant, healthy. For the whites of the South he had
only high regard and friendship. He, of all men, knew
how they had suffered from the war — and he realized
also that they had fought for what they believed was
right. In his heart there was no hate. He resolved to give
himself — ^his life — ^his fortune — his intellect — his love —
his all, for the upbuilding of the South. He saw with
the vision of a prophet that indolence and pride were
the actual enemies of white and black alike. The blacks
must be taught to work — to know the dignity of human
labor — to serve society — to help themselves by helping
others. He realized that there are no menial tasks — that
198

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

all which serves is sacred. ^ And this Is the man who
sowed the seeds of truth in the heart of the nameless
black boy — Booker Washington. Armstrong's shib-
boleth, too, was, ** With malice toward none, but with I
charity for all, let us finish the work God has given
us to do/*

199

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

DO not know very much about this subject
of education, yet I believe I know as much
about what others know about it as most
people. I have visited the principal colleges
of America and Europe, and the methods of Preparatory
and High Schools are to me familiar. I know the night-
schools of the cities, the ** Ungraded Rooms," the
Schools for Defectives, the educational schemes in
prisons, the Manual-Training Schools, the New Edu-
cation (first suggested by Socrates) as carried out by
G. Stanley Hall, John Dewey, and dozens of other good
men and women in America. I am familiar with the
School for the Deaf at Malone, New York, and the
School for the Blind at Batavia, where even the sorely
stricken are taught to be self-sufficient, self-supporting
and happy. I have tumbled down the circular fire-escape
at Lapeer with the inmates of the Home of Epileptics,
and heard the shouts of laughter from lips that neyer
laughed before. I have seen the Jewish Manual Train-
ing School of Chicago transform Russian refugees into
useful citizens — capable, earnest and excellent. I know
a little about Swarthmore, Wellesley, Vassar, Radcliffe,
and have put my head into West Point and Annapolis,
and had nobody cry, ** Genius! **

Of Harvard, Yale and Princeton I know something,
having done time in each. I have also given jobs to
graduates of Oxford, Cambridge and Heidelberg, to my
sorrow and their chagrin. This does not prove that
200

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

graduates of the great universities are, as a rule, out of
work, or that they are incompetent. It simply means
that it is possible for a man to graduate at these institu-
tions and secure his diploma and yet be a man who has
nothing the world really wants, either in way of ideas
or services.

The reason that my ** cum laude '* friends did not like
me, and the cause of my having to part with them —
getting them a little free transportation from your
Uncle George — ^was not because they lacked intelligence,
but because they wanted to secure a position, while I
simply offered them a job.

They were like Cave-of-the- Winds of Oshkosh, who is
an ice-cutter in August, and in winter is an out-of-door
horticulturist — a hired man is something else.
As a general proposition, I believe this will not now be
disputed: thgjobject of education is that a man may
benefit himself bv servipg gnripfry.

To benefit others, you must be reasonably happy : there
must be animation through useful activity, good-cheer,
kindness and health — health of mind and health of
body. And to benefit society you must also have
patience, persistency, and a firm determination to do
the right thing, and to mind your own business so that
others, too, may mind theirs. Then all should be
tinctured with a dash of discontent with past achieve-
ments, so you will constantly put forth an effort to do
more and better work.

201

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

When what you have done in the past looks large to you,
you have n't done much today.

So there you get the formula of Education : health and
happiness through useful activity — ^animation, kind-
ness, good-cheer, patience, persistency, willingness to
give and take, seasoned with enough discontent to
prevent smugness, which is the scum that grows over
every stagnant pond.

Of course no college can fill this prescription — ^no insti-
tution can supply the ingredients — all that the college
can do is to supply the conditions so that these things
can spring into being. Plants need the sunlight — mush-
rooms are different.

The question is, then, what teaching concern in America
supplies the best quality of actinic ray?
And I answer, Tuskegee is the place, and Booker
Washington is the man.

** What! '* you exclaim. ** The Ideal School a school for
Negroes, instituted by a Negro, where only Negroes
teach, and only Negroes are allowed to enter as stu-
dents? " 53 3S

And the answer is, ** Exactly so."

At Tuskegee there are nearly two thousand students,
and over one hundred fifty teachers. There are two
classes of students — ** day-school " and ** night-school"
students. The night-school students work all day at
any kind of task they are called upon to do. They
receive their board, clothing and a home — they pay
202

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

no tuition, but are paid for their labor, the amount
being placed to their credit, so when fifty dollars is
accumulated they can enter as ** day students."
The ** day students ** make up the bulk of the scholars.
Each pays fifty dollars a year. These all work every
other day at manual labor or some useful trade.
Tuskegee has fully twice as many applicants as it can
accommodate; but there is one kind of applicant who
never receives any favor. This is the man who says he
has the money to pay his way, and wishes to take the
academic course only. The answer always is: ** Please
go elsewhere — there are plenty of schools that want
your money. The fact that you have money will not
exempt you here from useful labor."
This is exactly what every college in the world should say.
^ The Tuskegee farm consists of about three thousand
acres. There are four hundred head of cattle, about five
hundred hogs, two hundred horses, great flocks of
chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, and many swarms of
bees. It is the intention to raise all the food that is con-
sumed on the place, and to manufacture all supplies.
There are wagon-shops, a sawmill, a harness-shop, a shoe-
shop, a tailor-shop, a printing-plant, a model laundry,
a canning establishment. Finer fruit and vegetables I
have never seen, and the thousands of peach, plum and
apple trees, and the vast acreage of berries that have
been planted, will surely some day be a goodly source of
srevenue 33 S&

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

The place is religious, but not dogmatically so — the
religion being merely the natural safety-valve for emo-
tion. At Tuskegee there is no lacrimose appeal to confess
your sins — they do better — they forget them.
I never heard more inspiring congregational singing, and
the use of the piano, organ, orchestra and brass band
^ are important factors in the curriculum) In the chapel I
spoke to an audience so attentive, so alert, so receptive,
so filled with animation, that the whole place looked
like a vast advertisement for Sozodont.
j No prohibitive signs are seen at Tuskegee. All is afHrm-
/ ative, yet it is understood that some things are tabu —
tobacco, for instance, and strong drink, 'of course 58
We have all heard of Harvard Beer and Yale Mixture,
but be it said in sober justice. Harvard runs no brewery,
and Yale has no official brand of tobacco. Yet Harvard
men consume much beer, and many men at Yale
smoke. And if you want to see the cigarette-fiend on his
native heath, you '11 find him like the locust on the
campus at Cambridge and New Haven. But if you want
to see the acme of all cigarette-bazaars, just ride out of
Boylston Street, Boston, any day at noon, and watch
the boys coming out of the Institute of Technology.
^ I once asked a Tech Professor if cigarette-smoking
was compulsory in his institution. ** Yes,** he replied;
** but the rule is not strictly enforced, as I know three
students who do not smoke."

Tuskegee stands for order, system, cleanliness, industry,
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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

courtesy and usefulness. There are no sink-holes around
the place, no ** back yards/' Everything is beautiful,
wholesome and sanitary.j All trades are represented.
The day is crammed so full of work from sunrise to
sunset that there is no time for complaining, misery or
faultfinding — three things that are usually born of
idleness. At Tuskegee there are no servants. All of the
work is done by the students and teachers — everybody
works — everybody is a student, and all are teachers 5S
.. We are all teachers, whether we will it or not — we teach
by example, and all students who do good work are
good teachers.

(When the Negro is able to do skilled work, he ceases to
be a problem — ^he is a man. (The fact that Alexandre
Dumas was a Negro does not count against him in the
world's assize.

The old-time academic college, that cultivated the
cerebrum and gave a man his exercise in an indoor
gymnasium, or not at all, has ruined its tens of thou-
sands. To have top — head and no lungs — ^is not wholly
desirable. The student was made exempt from every
useful thing, just as the freshly freed slave hoped and
expected to be, and after four years it was often impos-
sible for him to take up the practical lessons of life. He
had gotten used to the idea of one set of men doing all
the work and another set of men having the culture. To
a large degree he came to regard culture as the aim of
life. And when a man begins to pride himself upon his

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

culture, he has n't any to sp)eak of. Culture must be
merely incidental, and to clutch it is like capturing a
butterfly: you do not secure the butterfly at all — you
get only a grub.

Let us say right here that there is only one way in
which a Negro, or a white man, can ever make himself
respected. Statute law will not do it; rights voted him
by the State are of small avail; making demands will
not secure the desired sesame. If we ever gain the
paradise of freedom it will be because we have earned it
— because we deserve it. A make-believe education may
suffice for a white man — especially if he has a rich
father, but a Negro who has to carve out his own
destiny must be taught order, system, and quiet, per-
sistent, useful effort.

A college that has its students devote one-half their
time to actual, useful work is so in line with common-
sense that we are amazed that the idea had to be put
into execution by the ex-slave as a life-saver for his
disenfranchised race. Our great discoveries are always
accidents: we work for one thing and get another. I
expect that the day will come, and erelong, when the
great universities of the world will have to put the
Tuskegee Idea into execution in order to save themselves
from being distanced by the Colored Race.
If life were one thing and education another, it might be
all right to separate them. Culture of the head over a
desk, and indoor gymnastics for the body, are not the
206

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

ideal, and that many succeed in spite of the handicap
is no proof of the excellence of the plan. Ships that go
around the world accumulate many barnacles, but
barnacles as a help to the navigator are an iridescent
dream 5S 53

A little regular manual labor, rightly mixed with the
mental, eliminates draw-poker, highballs, brawls, broils.
Harvard Beer, Yale Mixture, Princeton Pinochle,
Chippee dances, hazing, roistering, rowdyism and the
bulldog propensity. The Heidelberg article of cocked
hat and insolent ways is not produced at Tuskegee. At
Tuskegee there is no place for those who lie in wait for
insults and regard scrapping as a fine art. As for college
athletics at the Orthodox Universities, only one man
out of ten ever does anything at it anyway — the college
man who needs the gymnasium most is practically
debarred from everything in it and serves as a laughing-
stock whenever he strips. Coffee, cocaine, bromide,
tobacco and strong drink often serve in lieu of exercise
and ozone, and Princeton winks her woozy eye in
innocency 53 53

Freedom can not be bestowed — it must be achieved.
Education can not be given— it must be earned. Lincoln
did not free the slaves — ^he only freed himself. The
Negroes did not know they were slaves, and so they
had no idea of what freedom meant.CUntil a man wants
to be free, each kind of freedom is only another form of
slavery. Booker Washington is showing the colored man

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

/how to secure a genuine freedom through useful activity.

(QTo^get freedom you must shoulder responsibiUty.
If college education were made compulsory by the State,
and one-half of the curriculum consisted of actual,
useful manual labor, most of our social ills would be
solved, and we would be well out on the highway
towards the Ideal City.

Without animation, man is naught — nothing is accom-
plished, nothing done. People who inspire other people
have animation plus.

And animation plus is ecstacy. In ecstasy the spirit
rushes out, runs over and saturates all. Oratory is an
ecstasy that inundates the hearer and makes him ride
upon the crest of another's ideas.

Art is born of ecstasy — art is ecstasy in the concrete.
Beautiful music is ecstsisy expressed in sound, regulated
into rhythm, cadence and form. ** Statuary is frozen
music," said Heine.

A man who is not moved into ecstasy by ecstasy is
hopeless. A people that has not the surging, uplifting,
onward power that ecstasy gives, is decadent — dead 3S
The Negro is easily moved to ecstasy. Very little musical
training makes him a power in song. At Tuskegee the
congregational singing is a feature that, once heard, is
never to be forgotten. Fifteen hundred people lifting
up their hearts in an outburst of emotion — song!
Fifteen hundred people of one mind, doing anything in
unison — do you know what it means? Ecstasy is
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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

essentially a matter of sex. In art and religion sex can
not be left out of the equation. The simple fact that in
forty years the Negro race in America has increased
from four million to ten million tells of their ecstasy as
a people. ** Only happy beings reproduce themselves,"
says Darwin. Depress your animal and it ceases to
breed; so there are a whole round of animals that do
not reproduce in captivity. But in slavery or freedom
the Negro sings, and reproduces — he is not doomed nor
depressed — his soul arises superior to circumstance 3S
Without animation, education is impossible. And the
problem of the educator is to direct this singing, flowing,
moving spirit of the hive into useful channels.
Education is simply the encouragement of right habits —
the fixing of good habits until they become a part of
one's nature, and are exercised automatically.
The man who is industrious by habit is the only man
who wins. The man who is not industrious except when
driven to it, or when it occurs to him, accomplishes
little 3S 5S

Man gets his happiness by doing: and work to a slave
is always distasteful. The power of mimicry and imita-
tion is omitted — the owner does not work — the strong
man does not work. Ergo — to grow strong means to
cease work. To be strong means to be free — to be free
means no work!

It has been a frightfully bad education that the Negro
has had — ^work distasteful, and work disgraceful! And

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

the slave-owner suffered most of all, for he came to
regard work as debasing.

And now a Negro is teaching the Negro that work is
beautiful — that work is a privilege — that only through
^^illing^seryice can he^ ever win his freedoniiArchitecture
is fixed ecstasy, inspired always by a strong man who
gives a feeling of security. Athens was an ecstasy in
marble 5S 53

Tuskegee is an ecstasy in brick and mortar.
Don't talk about the education of the Negro! The
experiment has really never been tried, except spas-
modically, of educating either the whites or the blacks
in the South — or elsewhere.

A Negro is laying hold upon the natural ecstasy of the
Negro, and directing it into channels of usefulness and
excellence. Can you foretell where this will end — this
formation of habits of industry, sobriety and con-
tinued, persistent effort towards the right?
BookerWashington, child of a despised race, has done
aliaira^bi^at the comH^^^d^edagogic a^lZ^rii^d^
wisdom of ages has failed to do. He is the Moses who
by his example is leading the children of his former
oppressors out into the light of social, mental, moral
_and economic freedom.,

I am familiar in detail with every criticism brought
against Tuskegee. On examination these criticisms all
reduce themselves down to three:
1 • A V8ist sum of money has been collected by Booker
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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Washington for his own aggrandizement and benefit.

2. Tuskegee is a show-place where all the really good
work is done by picked men from the North.

3. Booker Washington is a tyrant, a dictator and an
egotist. ^ If I were counsel for Tuskegee — as I am not —
I would follow the example of the worthy accusers, and
submit the matter without argument. Booker Washing-
ton can afford to plead guilty to every charge; and he
has never belittled himself by answering his accusers.
^But let the facts be known, that this man heis collected
upward of six million dollars, mostly from the people of
the North, and has built up the nearest perfect educa-
tional institution in the world.

It is probably true that many of his teachers and best
workers are picked people — but they are Negroes, and
were selected by a Negro. The great general reveals his
greatness in the selection of his generals: it was the
marshals whom Napoleon appointed who won for him
his victories; but his spirit animated theirs, and he
chose them for this one reason — ^he could dominate
them. He infused into their souls a goodly dash of his
own enthusiasm.

Booker Washington is a greater general than Napoleon.
For the Tuskegee idea no Waterloo awaits. And as near
as I can judge, Booker Washington's most noisy critics
are merely camp-followers.

That the man is a tyrant and a dictator there is no
doubt. He is a beneficent tyrant, but a tyrant still, for

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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

he always, invariably, has his own way in weighty
matters — in trivialities others can have theirs. And as
for dictatorship, the man who advances on chaos and
transforms it into cosmos is perforce a dictator and an
egotist 3S 53

Booker Washington believes he is in the right, and he
makes no effort to conceal the fact that he is on earth.
In him there is no disposition to run and peep about,
and find himself a dishonorable grave. All live men are
egotists, and they are egotists just in proportion as they
have life. Dead men are not egotists. Booker Washing-
ton has life in abundance, and through him I truly
believe runs the spirit of Divinity, if ever a living man
had it. A man like this is the instrument of Deity.
Tuskegee Institute has applications ahead all the time,
from all over America, for competent colored men and
women who can take charge of important work and do
it. Dressmakers, housekeepers, cooks, farmers, stock-
men, builders, gardeners, are in demand. The world has
never yet had enough people to bear its burdens.
Recently we have heard much of the unemployed, but
a very little search will show that the people out of work
are those of bad habits, which make them unreliable
and untrustworthy. The South, especially, needs the
willing worker and the practical man. And best of all the
South knows it, and stands ready to pay for the service.
^ A few years ago there was a fine storm of protest from
Northern Negroes to the effect that Booker Washington
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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

was endeavoring to limit the Negro to menial service —
that is, thrust him back into servility. The first ambi-
tion of the Negro was to get an education so that he
might become a Baptist preacher. To him, education
meant freedom from toil, and of course we do not have
to look far to see where he got the idea. Then when
Tuskegee came forward and wanted to make black-
smiths, carpenters and brick-masons out of black men,
there was a cry, ** If this means education, we will none
of it — treason, treason! "It was assumed that the Negro
who set other Negroes to work was not their friend.
This phase of the matter requires neither denial nor
apology. We smile and pass on.

In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-seven, the Negro was
practically disenfranchised throughout the South, by
being excluded from the primaries. He had no recognized
ticket in the field. For both the blacks and the whites
this hats been well. To most of the blacks freedom
meant simply exemption from work. So there quickly
grew up a roistering, turbulent, idle and dangerous
class of black men who were used by the most ambitious
of their kind for political ends. To preserve the peace of
the community, the whites were forced to adopt heroic
measures, with the result that we now have the dis-
enfranchised Negro.

Early in the Eighties, Booker Washington realized that,
politically, there was no hope for his race. He saw,
however, that commerce recognized no color line. We

213

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

would buy, sell and trade with the black man on abso-
lute equality. Life-insurance companies would insure
him, banks would receive his deposits, and if honest and
competent, would loan him money. If he could shoe a
horse, we waived his complexion ; and in every sort and
kind of craftsmanship he stood on absolute equality
with the whites. The only question ever asked was,
** Can you do the work? "

And Booker Washington set out to help the Negro win
success for himself by serving society through becoming
skilled in doing useful things. And so it became Head,
Hand and Heart. The manual was played off against
the intellectual.

I But over and beyond the great achievement of Booker
Washington in founding and carrying to a successful
issue the most complete educational scheme of this age,
or any other, stands the man himself. He is one without
hate, heat or prejudice.jNo one can write on the lintels
of his doorpost the word, ** Whim.*' He is half -white,
but calls himself a Negro. He sides with the disgraced
and outcast black woman who gave him birth, rather
than with the respectable white man who was his sire.
^ He rides in the Jim Crow cars, and on long trips, if it
is deemed expedient to use a sleeping-car, he hires the
stateroom, so that he may not trespass or presume upon
those who would be troubled by the presence of a
colored man. Often in traveling he goes for food and
shelter to the humble home of one of his own people.
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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

\

At hotels he receives and accepts, without protest or
resentment, the occasional contumely of the inferior
whites — ^whites too Ignorant to appreciate that one of
God's noblemen stands before them. For the whites of
the South he has only words of kindness and respect ;
the worst he says about them Is that they do not under-
stand. His modesty, his patience, his forbearance, are
sublime. /He Is a true FaBian — ^he^oes^what he jg3J?
^ke flie foyd^lfeiJ^croT^ oppoftumst^thaF^g'^) Every
petty annoyance Is passed over; the gibes and jeers and
the Ingratitude of his own race are forgotten. ** They
do not understand,** he calmly says. He does his work.
He Is respected by the best people of North and South.
He has the confidence of the men of affairs — he is a
safe man.

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THOMAS ARNOLD

Let me mind my own personal work; keep myself pure

and zealous and believing; laboring to do God*s will in

this fruitful vineyard of young lives committed to my

charge, as my allotted field, until my work be done.

—Thomas Arnold

THOMAS ARNOLD

THOMAS ARNOLD

HOMAS ARNOLD was born in
Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five,
and died in Eighteen Hundred
Forty-two. His life was short, as
men count time, but he Uved long
enough to make for himself a name
and a fame that are both lasting and
luminous. Though he was neither a
great writer nor a great preacher, yet there were times
when he thought he was both. He was only a school-
teacher. However, he was an artist in schoolteaching,
and art is not a thing — it is a way. It is the beautiful
way — the effective way.

Schoolteachers have no means of proving their prowess
by conspicuous waste, and no time to convince the
world of their excellence through conspicuous leisure;
consequently, for histrionic purposes, a schoolteacher's
cosmos is a plain, slaty gray. Schoolteachers do not
wallow in wealth nor feed fat at the public trough. No
one ever accuses them of belonging to the class known
as the predatory rich, nor of being millionaire male-
factors. They have to do their work every day at
certain hours and dedicate its results to time.
For many years Thomas Arnold has been known as the
father of his son. Several great men have been thus over-
shadowed. The father of Disraeli, for instance, was

219

THOMAS ARNOLD

favored by fame and fortune, until his gifted son moved
into the limelight, and after that Pater shone mostly
in a reflected glory. Jacopo Bellini was the greatest
painter in Venice until his two sons, Gian and Gentile,
surpassed him, and history writes him down as the
father of the Bellinis. Lyman Beccher was regarded as
America's greatest preacher until Henry Ward moved
the mark up a few notches. The elder Pitt was looked
upon as a genuine statesman until his son graduated
into the Cabinet, and then ** the terrible cornet of
horse " became known as the father of Pitt. Now that
both are dust, and we are getting the proper perspective,
we see that ** the great commoner ** was indeed a great
man, and so they move down the corridors of time
together, arm in arm, this father and son. That excellent
person who carried the gripsacks of greatness so long
that he thought the luggage was his own, Major James
B. Pond, launched at least one good thing. It was this:
** Matthew Arnold gave fifty lectures in America, and
nobody ever heard one of them; those in his audience
who could no longer endure the silence slipped quietly
out." 3S 53

Matthew Arnold was a critic and writer who, having
secured a tuppence worth of success through being the
son of his father, and thus securing the speaker's eye,
finally got an oratorical bee in his bonnet and went
a-barnstorming. He cultivated reserve and indifference,
both of which he was told were necessary factors of
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THOMAS ARNOLD

success in a public speaker. ^ And this is true. But they
will not make an orator, any more than long hair, a
peculiar necktie, and a queer hat will float a poet on the
tide of time safely into the Hall of Fame.
Matthew Arnold cultivated repose, but instead of con-
vincing the audience that he had power, he only made
them think he was sleepy. Major Pond, having lived
much with orators, and thinking the trick easy, tried
oratory on his own account, and succeeded as well as
did Matthew Arnold. No one ever heard Major Pond:
his voice fell over the footlights, dead, into the orchestra ;
only those with opera-glasses knew he was talking 5S
But to be unintelligible is not a special recommendation.
Men may be moderate for two reasons — through excess
of feeling and because they are actually dull.
Matthew Arnold has slipped back into his true position
— that of a man of letters. The genius is a man of affairs.
Humanity is the theme, not books. Books are usually
written about the thoughts of men who wrote books.
Books die and disintegrate, but humanity is an endless
procession, and the souls that go marching on are those
who fought for freedom, not those who speculate on
abstrusities 5S 5S

The credential of Thomas Arnold to immortality is not
that he was the father of Matthew and eight other little
Arnolds, but it lies in the fact that he fought for a wider
horizon in life through education. He lifted his voice for
liberty. He believed in the divinity of the child, not in

221

THOMAS ARNOLD

its depravity. Arnold of Rugby was a teacher of teach-
ers, as every great teacher is. The pedagogic world is
now going back to his philosophy, just as in statesman-
ship we are reverting to Thomas Jefferson. These men
who spoke classic truth, not transient — truth that fits
in spite of fashion, time and place — are the true proph-
ets of mankind. Such was Thomas Arnold!

222

THOMAS ARNOLD

F Thomas Arnold had been just a little bigger,
the world probably would never have heard
of him, for an interdict would have been
placed upon his work. The miracle is that, as
it was, the Church and the State did not snuff him out.
fl He stood for sweet reasonableness, but unintention-
ally created much opposition. His life was a warfare.
Yet he managed to make himself acceptable to a few;
so for fourteen years this head master of a preparatory
school for boys lived his life and did his work. He sent
out his radiating gleams, and grew straight in the
strength of his spirit, and lived out his life in the light.
^ His sudden death sanctified and sealed his work
before he was subdued and ironed out by the conven-
tions 38 53

Happy Arnold! If he had lived, he might have met the
fate of Arnold of Brescia, who was also a great teacher.
Arnold of Brescia was a pupil of Abelard, and was
condemned by the Church as a disturber of the peace
for speaking in eulogy of his master. Later, he attacked
the profligacy of the idle prelates, as did Luther,
Savonarola and all the other great church-reformers.
When ordered into exile and silence, he still protested
his right to speak. He was strangled on order of the
Pope, his body burned, and the ashes thrown into the
Tiber. The Baptists, I believe, claim Arnold of Brescia
SIS the forerunner of their sect, and certain it is that he
was of the true Roger Williams type.

223

THOMAS ARNOLD

Thomas Arnold, too, was filled with a passion for right-
eousness. His zeal for the upright, manly life constituted
hisstrength. Of course he would not have been executed,
as was Arnold of Brescia — the times had changed — ^he
would simply have been shelved, poohpoohed, deprived
of his living and socially Crapseyized. Death saved him
— aged forty-seven — and his soul goes marching on!

224

THOMAS ARNOLD

HE parents of Thomas Arnold belonged to
the great Middle Class — that class which
Disraeli said never did any thinking on its
own account, but to the best of its ability
deferred to and imitated the idle rich in matters of
religion, education and politics.

Doctor Johnson maintained that if members of the
Middle Class worked hard and economized, it was in
the hope that they might leave money and name for
their children and make them exempt from all useful
effort 53 33

** To indict a class,** said Burke, ** is neither reasonable
nor right/* But certain it is that a vast number of
fairly intelligent people in England and elsewhere
regard the life of the ** aristocracy ** as very desirable
and beautiful.

To this end they want their boys to become clergymen,
lawyers, doctors or army officers.

** Only two avenues of honor are open to aspiring youth
in England,** said Gladstone — ** the Army and the
Church.** 53 53

The father of Thomas Arnold was Collector of Customs
at Cowes, Isle of Wight. Holding this petty office under
the Government, with a half-dozen men at his com-
mand, we can easily guess his caliber, habits, belief and
mode of life. He was respectable ; and to be respectable,
a Collector of Customs must be punctilious in Church
matters, in order to be acceptable to Church people, for

225

THOMAS ARNOLD

of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The parents of
Thomas Arnold very naturally centered their ambitions
for him on the Church, as he was not very strong.
When the child was only six years old, the father died
from ** spasm of the heart.'* At this time the boy had
begun to take Latin, and his education was being looked
after by a worthy governess, who daily drilled his
mental processes and took him walking, leading him by
the hand. On Sundays he wore a wide, white collar,
shiny boots and a stiff hat. The governess cautioned
him not to soil his collar, nor to get mud on his boots.
fl In later years he told how he looked covetously at
the boys who wore neither hats nor boots, and who did
not have a governess.

His mother had a fair income, and so this prim, precise,
exact and crystallized m.ode of education was con-
tinued. Out of her great love for her child, the mother
sent him away from home when he was eight years old.
Of course there were tears on both sides; but now a
male man must educate him, and women were to be
dropped out of the equation — this that the evil in the
child should be curbed, his spirit chastened, and his
mind disciplined.

The fact that a child rather liked to be fondled by his
mother, or that his mother cared to fondle him, was
proof of total depravity on the part of both.
The Reverend Doctor Griffiths, who took charge of the
boy for two years, was certainly not cruel, but at the
226

THOMAS ARNOLD

same time he was not exactly human. In Nature we
never hear of a she-lion sending her cubs away to be
looked after by a denatured lion. It is really doubtful
whether you could ever raise a lion to lionhood by this
method. Some goat would come along and butt the life
out of him, even after he had evolved whiskers and a
mane 53 53

After two years with Doctor Griffiths, young Arnold was
sent to Manchester, where he remained in a boys*
boarding-house from his tenth to his fourteenth year.
To the teachers here — all men — he often paid tribute,
but uttered a few heretical doubts as to whether
discipline as a substitute for mother-love was not an
error of pious but overzealous educators.
At sixteen years of age he was transferred to Corpus
Christi College at Oxford. In Eighteen Hundred Fifteen,
being then twenty years of age, he was elected a Fellow
of Oriel College, and there he resided until he wsis
twenty-four 53 53

He was a prizeman in Latin, Greek and English, and
was considered a star scholar — both by himself and by
others. Ten years afterwards he took a backward
glance, and said: **At twenty- two I was proud, precise,
stiff, formal, uncomfortable, unhappy, and uninten-
tionally made everybody else unhappy with whom I
came in contact. The only people I really mixed with
were those whose lives were dedicated to the ablative."
^ When twenty-four he was made a deacon and used

227

THOMAS ARNOLD

to read prayers at neighboring chapels, for which
service he was paid five shillings. Being now thrown on
his own resources, he did the thing a prizeman always
does: he showed others how. As a tutor he was a success:
more scholars came to him than he could really take
care of. But he did not like the work, since all the
pupil desired, and all the parents desired, was that he
should help the backward one get his marks, and glide
through the eye of a needle into pedagogic paradise 58
At twenty-six he was preaching, teaching and writing
learned essays about things he did not understand.
^ From this brief sketch it will be seen that the early
education of Thomas Arnold was of the kind and type
that any fond parent of the well-to-do Middle Class
would most desire. He had been shielded from all
temptations of the world; he could do no useful thing
with his hands; his knowledge of economics — ^ways and
means — ^was that of a child; of the living present he
knew little, but of the dead past he assumed and believed
he knew much.

It was purely priestly, institutional education. It was
the kind of education that every well-to-do Briton would
like to have his sons receive. It was, in short, England's
Ideal 5S 5S

228

THOMAS ARNOLD

UGBY GRAMMAR SCHOOL was endowed
in Sixteen Hundred Fifty-three by one
Laurence Sherif, a worthy grocer. The orig-
inal gift was comparatively small, but the
investment being in London real estate, has increased in
value until it yields now an income of about thirty-five
thousand dollars a year.

In the time of Arnold there were about three hundred
pupils. It is not a large school now; there are high
schools in a hundred cities of America that surpass it
in many ways.

Rugby's claim to special notice lies in its traditions —
the great men who were once Rugby boys, and the
great men who were Rugby teachers. Also, in the fact
that Thomets Hughes wrote a famous story called,
** Tom Brown at Rugby."

Rugby Grammar School was one hundred twenty-five
years old when Sir Joshua Reynolds commissioned
Lord Cornwallis to go to America and fetch George
Washington to England, that Sir Joshua might paint
his portrait.

For a hundred years prior to the time of Arnold, there
had not been a perceptible change in the methods of
teaching. The boys were herded together. They fought,
quarreled, divided into cliques; the big boys bullied the
little ones. Fagging was the law; so the upper forms
enslaved the lower ones. There was no home life, and
the studies were made irksome and severe, purposely,

229

THOMAS ARNOLD

as it was thought that pleasant things were sinful.
^ If any better plan could have been devised to make
study absolutely repulsive, so the student would
shun it as soon as he was out of school, we can not
guess it.

The system was probably born of inertia on the part of
the teachers. The pastor who pushes through his pre-
scribed services, with mind on other things, and thus
absolves his conscience for letting his congregation go
drifting straight to Gehenna, was duplicated in the
teacher. He did his duty — and nothing more.
Selfishness, heartlessness and brutality manipulated the
birch. Head was all ; heart and hand nothing. This was
schoolteaching. As a punishment for failure to memorize
lessons, there were various plans to disgrace and dis-
courage the luckless ones. Standing in the corner with
face to the wall, and the dunce-cap, had given place to
a system of fines, whereby ** ten lines of Vergil for
failure to attend prayers," and ten more for failure to
get the first, often placed the boy in hopeless bank-
ruptcy. If he was a fag, or slave of a higher-form boy,
cleaning the other's boots, scrubbing stairs, running on
foolish and needless errands, getting cuffs and kicks by
way of encouragement, he saw his fines piling up and
no way ever to clear them off and gain freedom by
promotion 33 38

Viewed from our standpoint, the thing has a ludicrous
bouffe air that makes us smile. But to the boy caught in
230

THOMAS ARNOLD

the toils it was tragic. To work and evolve in an environ-
ment of such brutaUty was impossible to certain
temperaments. Success lay in becoming calloused and
indifferent. If the boy of gentle habits and slight
physical force did not sink into mental nothingness, he
was in danger of being bowled over by disease and
death 33 33

Indeed, the physical condition of the pupils was very
bad: smallpox, fevers, consumption, and breaking out
with sores and boils, were common.
Thomas Arnold was thirty-three years old when he was
called as head master to Rugby. He was married, and
babies were coming along with astonishing regularity.
He had taken priestly orders and was passing rich on
one hundred pounds a year. Poverty and responsibiltiy
had given him ballast, and love for his own little brood
had softened his heart and vitalized his soul.
As a writer and speaker he had made his presence felt at
various college commencements and clergymen's meet-
ings. He had challenged the brutal, indifferent, lazy and
so-called disciplinary methods of teaching.
And so far as we know, he is the first man in England to
declare that the teacher should be the foster-parent of
the child, and that all successful teaching must be born
of love 33 33

The well-upholstered conservatives twiddled their
thumbs, coughed, and asked: ** How about the doctrine
of total depravity? Do you mean to say that the child

231

THOMAS ARNOLD

should not be disciplined? What does Solomon say about
the use of the rod? Does the Bible say that the child is
good by nature? *'

But Thomas Arnold could not explain all he knew.
Moreover, he did not wish to fight the Church — ^he
believed in the Church — to him it was a divine institu-
tion. But there were methods and practises in the
Church that he would have liked to forget.
** My sympathies go out to inferiority,*' he said. The
weakling often needed encouragement, not discipline.
The bad boy must be won, not suppressed.
In one of these conferences of clergymen, Arnold said:
fl ** I once chided a pupil, a little, pale, stupid boy —
undersized and seemingly half -sick — for not being able
to recite his very simple lesson. He looked up at me and
said v/ith a touch of spirit: * Sir, why do you get angry
with me? Do you not know I am doing the best
lean?*" 5S 5S

One of the clergymen present asked Arnold how he
punished the boy for his impudence.
And Arnold replied: ** I did not punish him — he had
properly punished me. I begged his pardon.**
The idea of a teacher begging the pardon of a pupil was
a brand-new thing.

Several clergymen present laughed — one scowled — two
sneezed. But a Bishop, shortly after this, urged the
name of Thomas Arnold as master of Rugby, and added
to his recommendation this line: ** If elected to the
232

THOMAS ARNOLD

office he will change the methods of schoolteaching in
every public school in England/'

The ayes had it, and Arnold was called to Rugby. The
salary was so-so, the pupils between two and three
hundred in number — many were home on sick-leave —
the Sixth Form was in charge.

233

THOMAS ARNOLD

HE genius of Arnold was made manifest, almost
as soon as he went to Rugby, by the way in
which he managed the boys who bullied the
whole school, and what is worse, did it legally.

^ Fagging was official.

The Sixth Form was composed of thirty boys who stood
at the top, and these boys ran the school. They were
boys who, by reason of their size, strength, aggressive-
ness and mental ability, got the markings that gave
them this autocratic power. They were now immune
from authority — they were free. In a year they would
gravitate to the University.

We can hardly understand now how a bully could get
markings through his bullying propensities; but a
rudimentary survival of the idea may yet be seen in
big football-players, who are given good marks, and
very gentle mental massage in class. If the same
scholars were small and skinny, they would certainly
be plucked.

The faculty found freedom in shifting responsibility for
discipline to the Sixth Form.

Read the diary of Arnold, and you will be amazed on
seeing how he fought against taking from the Sixth
Form the right to bodily chastise any scholar in the
school that the king of the Sixth Form declared deserved
it 53 58

If a teacher thought a pupil needed punishment, he
turned the luckless one over to the Sixth Form. Can we
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THOMAS ARNOLD

now conceive of a system where the duty of certain
scholars was to whip other scholars ? Not only to whip
them, but to beat them into insensibility if they fought
back? 53 33

Such was schoolteaching in the public schools of
England in Eighteen Hundred Thirty.
Against this brutality there was now a growing senti-
ment— ^a piping voice bidding the tide to stay!
But now that Arnold was in charge of Rugby, he got
the ill-will of his directors by declaring that he did not
intend to curtail the powers of the Sixth Form — he
proposed to civilize it. To try out the new master, the
Sixth Form, proud in their prowess, sent him word that
if he interfered with them in any way, they would first
•* bust up the school,'* and then resign in a body. More-
over, they gave it out that if any pupil complained to
the master concerning the Sixth Form, the one so com-
plaining would be taken out by night and drowned in
the classic Avon.

There were legends among the younger boys of strange
disappearances, and these were attributed to the swift
vengeance of ** The Bloody Sixth.**
Above the Sixth Form there was no law.
Every scholar took off his hat to a ** Sixth.*' A Sixth
uncovered to nobody, and touched his cap only to a
teacher 53 53

And custom had become so rooted that the Sixth Form
was regarded as a sort of police necessity — ^a caste which

235

THOMAS ARNOLD

served the school just as the Army served the Church.
To reach the Sixth Form were paradise — it meant
Uberty and power — Uberty to do as you pleased, and
power to punish all who questioned your authority Si
To uproot the power of the Sixth Form was the intent
of a few reformers in pedagogics.

There were two ways to deal with the boys of the Sixth
— fight them or educate them.

Arnold called the Rugby Sixth together and assured
them that he could not do without their help. He
needed them: he wanted to make Rugby a model school,
a school that would influence all England — ^would they
help him?

The dogged faces before him showed signs of interest.
He continued, without waiting for their reply, to set
before them his ideal of an English Gentleman. He
persuaded them, melted them by his glowing personal-
ity, shook hands with each, and sent them away.
The next day he again met them in the same intimate
way, and one of the boys made bold to assure him that
if he wanted anybody licked — pupils or teachers — they
stood ready to do his bidding.

He thanked the boy, but assured him that he was of the
opinion that it would not be necessary to do violence to
any one ; he was going to unfold to them another way —
a new way, which was very old, but which as yet
England had not tried.

236

THOMAS ARNOLD

HE great teacher is not the one who imparts

the most facts — he is the one who inspires by

supplying a nobler ideal.

Men are superior or inferior just in the ratio
that they possess certain qualities. Truth, honor, frank-
ness, health, system, industry, kindliness, good-cheer
and a spirit of helpfulness are so far beyond any mental
acquisition that comparisons are not only odious, but
absurd 53 33

Arnold inspired qualities, and in this respect his work
at Rugby forms a white milestone on the path of prog-
ress in pedagogy.
To an applicant for a position as teacher, Arnold wrote :

What I want is a man who is a Christian and a gentle-
man, an active man, and one who has commonsense,
and understands boys. I do not so much care about
scholarship, as he will have immediately under him the
lowest forms in the school, but yet, on second thought,
I do care about it very much, because his pupils may
be in the highest forms; and besides, I think that even
the elements are best taught by a man who has a
thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if one
must give way, I prefer activity of mind and an interest
in his work to high scholarship; for the one may be
acquired far more easily than the other. I should wish it
also to be understood that the new master may be
called upon to take boarders in his house, it being my
intention for the future to require this of all masters as
I see occasion, that so in time the school-barracks
may die a natural death. With this to offer, I think I

237

THOMAS ARNOLD

have a right to look rather high for the man whom
I fix upon, and it is my great object to get here a society
of intelUgent, gentlemanly and active men, who may
permanently keep up the character of the school, and
if I were to break my neck tomorrow, carry it on.

^ Ideas are in the air, and great inventions are worked
out in different parts of the world at the same time.
Rousseau had written his" Emile,** but we are not aware
that Arnold ever read it.

And if he had, he probably would have been shocked,
not inspired, by its almost brutal frankness. The French
might read it — the English could not.
Pestalozzi was working out his ideas in Switzerland, and
Froebel, an awkward farmer lad in Germany, was
dreaming dreams that were to come true. But Thomas
Arnold caught up the threads of feeling in England and
expressed them in the fabric of his life.
His plans were scientific, but his reasons, unlike those of
Pestalozzi, will not always stand the test of close analy-
sis. Arnold was true to the Church, but he found it
convenient to forget much for which the Church stood.
He went back to a source nearer the fountainhead. All
reforms in organized religion lie in returning to the
primitive type. The religion of Jesus was very simple;
that of a modern church dignitary is very complex. One
can be understood; the other has to be explained and
expounded, and usually several languages are required.
^Arnold would have his boys evolve into Christian
238

THOMAS ARNOLD

gentlemen. And his type of English gentleman he did
not get out of books on theology — it was his own com-
posite idea. But having once evolved it, he cast around
to justify it by passages of Scripture. This was beautiful,
too, but from our standpoint it was n't necessary 38
From his it was.

A gentleman to him was a man who looked for the
best in other people, and not for their faults; who
overlooked slights; who forgot the good he had done;
who was courteous, kind, cheerful, industrious and
clean inside and out; who was slow to wrath, fervent
in spirit, serving the Lord. And the ** Lord **to Arnold
was embodied in Church and State.
Arnold used to say that schoolteaching should not be
based upon religion, but it should be religion. And to
him religion and conduct were one.
That he reformed Rugby through the Sixth Form is a
fact. He infused into the big boys the thought that
they must help the little ones; that for a first offense a
lad must never be punished; that he should have the
matter fully explained to him, and be shown that he
should do right because it is right, and not for fear of
punishment 5S 53

The Sixth Form was taught to unbend its dignity and
enter into fellowship with its so-called inferiors. To
this end Arnold set the example of playing cricket with
the ** scrubs.'* 53 He never laughed at a poor player
nor at a poor scholar. He took dull pupils into his own

239

THOMAS ARNOLD

house, and insisted that his helpers, the other teachers,
should do the same. He showed the Sixth Form how
much better it was to take the part of the weak, and
stop bullying the lower forms, than to set the example
of it in the highest. Before Arnold had been at Rugby
a year, the Sixth Form had resolved itself into a Recep-
tion Committee that greeted all newcomers, got them
located, introduced them to the other boys, showed
them the sights, and looked after their wants like big
brothers or foster-fathers.

Christianity to Arnold was human service. In his zeal
to serve, to benefit, to bless, to inspire, he never tired 5S
Such a disposition as this is contagious. In every big
business or school, there is one man's mental attitude
that animates the whole institution. Everybody par-
takes of it. When the leader gets melancholia, the shop
has it — the whole place becomes tinted with ultra-
marine. The best helpers begin to get out, and the
honeycombing process of dissolution is on.
A school must have a soul, just as surely as a shop,
a bank, a hotel, a store, a home, or a church has to
have. When an institution grows so great that it has
no soul — simply a financial head and a board of direc-
tors— dry-rot sets in and disintegration in a loose
wrapper is at the door.

This explains why the small colleges are the best, when
they are : there is a personality about them, an animating
spirit that is pervasive and preservative.
240

THOMAS ARNOLD

Thomas Arnold was not a man of vast learning, nor
could one truthfully say he had a surplus of intellect;
but he had soul, plus. He never sought to save himself.
He gave himself to the boys of Rugby. His heart went
out to them, he believed in them — and he believed
them even when they lied, and he knew they lied. He
knew that humanity was sound at heart; he believed
in the divinity of mankind, and tried hard to forget
the foolish theology that taught otherwise.
Like Thomas Jefferson, who installed the honor system
in the University of Virginia, he trusted young men.
He made his appeal to that germ of goodness which
is in every human soul. In some ways he anticipated
Ben Lindsey in his love for the boy, and might have
conjured forth from his teeming brain the Juvenile
Court, and thus stopped the creation of criminals,
had his life not been consumed in a struggle with
stupidity and pedantry gone to seed that cried to
him, " Oh, who ever heard of such a thing as that! "
^The Kindergarten utilizes the propensity to play;
and Arnold utilizes the thirst for authority. Altruism
is flavored with a desire for approbation.
The plan of self-government by means of utilizing the
Sixth Form was quite on the order of our own ** George
Junior Republic." ** A school,** he said, ** should be
self-governing and cleanse itself from that which is
harmful.** And again he says: " If a pupil can gratify
his natural desire for approbation by doing that which

241

THOMAS ARNOLD

Is right, proper and best, he will work to this end instead
of being a hero by playing the rowdy. It is for the
scholars to set the seal of their approval on character,
and they will do so if we as teachers speak the word.
If I find a room in a tumult, I blame myself, not the
scholars. It is I who have failed, not they. Were I what
I should be, every one of my pupils would reflect my
worth. I key the situation, I set the pace, and if my
soul is in disorder, the school will be in confusion."
^ Nothing is done without enthusiasm. It is heart that
wins, not head, the round world over. And yet head
must systematize the promptings of the heart. Arnold
had a way of putting soul into a hand-clasp. His pupils
never forgot him. Wherever they went, no matter how
long they lived, they proclaimed the praises of Arnold
of Rugby. How much this earnest, enthusiastic, loving
and sincere teacher has influenced civilization, no man
can say. But this we know, that since his day there has
come about a new science of teaching. The birch has
gone with the dunce-cap. The particular cat-o'-nine-
tails that was burned in the house of Thomas Arnold
as a solemn ceremony, when the declaration was made,
** Henceforth I know my children will do right ! " has
found its example in every home of Christendom 5S
We no longer whip children. Schools are no longer
places of dread, pain and suffering, and we as teachers
are repeating with Friedrich Froebel the words of the
Nazarene, ** Suffer little children to come unto me,
242

THOMAS ARNOLD

and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of

Heaven.**

Also, we say with Thomas Arnold: ** The boy is father

to the man. A race of gentlemen can only be produced

by fostering in the boy the qualities that make for

health, strength and a manly desire to bless, benefit

and serve the race."

243

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

The purpose of the Kindergarten is to provide the
necessary and natural help which poor mothers require
who have to be about their work all day, and must leave
their children to themselves. The occupations pursued
in the Kindergarten are the following: free play of a
child by itself; free play of several children by them-
selves; associated play under the guidance of a teacher;
gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handiwork suited
to little children; going for walks; learning music, both
instrumental and vocal; learning the repetition of
poetry; story- telling ; looking at really good pictures;

aiding in domestic occupations; gardening.

— Froebel

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

RIEDRICH FROEBEL was born in
a Thuringian village, April Twenty-
first, Seventeen Hundred Eighty-
two. His father was pastor of the
Lutheran Church. When scarcely a
year old his mother died. Erelong
a stepmother came to fill her place
— but did n*t. This stepmother was
the kind we read about in the ** Six Best Sellers.** 5S
Her severity, lack of love, and needlessly religious zeal
served the future Kindergartner a dark background
on which to paint a joyous picture. Froebel was edu-
cated by antithesis. His home was the type etched so
unforgetably by Colonel Ed. Howe in his ** Story of a
Country Town,** which is n*t bad enough to be one of
the Six Best Sellers.

At the age of ten, out of pure pity, young Friedrich
was rescued from the cuckoo* s nest by an uncle who
had a big family of his own and love without limit.
There was a goodly brood left, so little Friedrich, slim,
slender, yellow, pensive and sad, was really never missed.
^The uncle brought the boy up to work, but treated him
like a human being, answering his questions, even
allowing him to have stick horses and little log houses
and a garden of his own.

At fifteen his nature had begun to awaken, and the

247

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

uncle, harkening to the boy's wish, apprenticed him
for two years to a forester. The young man's first work
was to make a Ust of the trees in a certain tract and
approximate their respective ages. The night before
his work began he lay awake thinking of the fun he
was going to have at the job. In after-years he told of
this incident in showing that it was absurd to try to
divorce work from play. ^ The two years as forester's
apprentice, from fifteen to seventeen, were really better
for him than any university could have been. His step-
mother's instructions had mostly been in the line of
prohibition. From earliest babyhood he had been
warned to ** look out." When he went on the street
it was with a prophecy that he would get run over by
a cart, or stolen by the gypsies, or fall off the bridge
and be drowned. The idea of danger had been dinged
into his ears so that fear had become a part of the
fabric of his nature. Even at fifteen, he took pains to
get out of the woods before sundown to avoid the bears.
At the same time his intellect told him there were no
bears there. But the shudder habit was upon him 38
Yet by degrees the work in the woods built up his body
and he grew to be at home in the forest, both day and
night. His duties taught him to observe, to describe,
to draw, to investigate, to decide. Then it was trans-
plantation, and perhaps the best of college life con-
sists in taking the youth out of the home environment
and supplying him new surroundings.
248

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

Forestry In America is a brand-new science. To clear
the ground has been our desire, and so to strip, burn
and destroy, saving only such logs as appealed to us
for ** lumber,** was the desideratum. But now we are
seriously considering the matter of tree-planting and
tree-preservation, and perhaps it would be well to ask
ourselves if two years at forestry, right out of doors,
in contact with Nature, wrestling with the world of
wood, rock, plant and living things, would n't be better
for the boy than double the time in stuffy dormitories
and still more stuffy recitation-rooms — listening to
stuffy lectures about things that are foreign to life 3S
I would say that a boy is a savage, but I do not care to
give offense to fond mammas. To educate him in the
line of his likes, as the race has been educated, seems
sensible and right. How would Yellowstone Park
answer for a National University, with Captain Jack
Crawford, William Muldoon, John Burroughs, John
Dewey, Stanley Hall and a mixture of men of these
types, for a faculty ?

Froebel thought his two years in the forest saved him
from consumption, and perhaps from insanity, for it
taught him to look out, not in, and to lend a hand. At
times he was a little too sentimental, as it was, and a
trifle more of morbidity and sensitiveness would have
ruined his life, absolutely.

The woods and God's great out-of-doors gave him bal-
ance and ballast, good digestion and sweet sleep o' nights.

249

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

The two years past, he went to Jena, where he had an
elder brother. This brother was a star scholar, and
Friedrich looked up to him as a pleiad of pedagogy.
He became a professor in a Jena preparatory school
and then practised medicine; but he never had the
misfortune to affront public opinion, and so oblivion
lured and won him, and took him as her own.
At Jena poor Froebel did not make head. His prepara-
tory work had n*t prepared him. He floundered in
studies too deep for one of his age, then followed some
foolish advice and hired a tutor to help him along.
Then he fell down, was plucked, got into debt, and
also into the ** career," where he boarded for nine weeks
at the expense of the State.

In the career he did n't catch up with his studies, quite
naturally, and the imprisonment almost broke his
health. Had he been in the career for dueling, he would
have emerged a hero. But debt meant that he had
neither money nor friends. When he was given his
release, as an economic move, he slipped away between
two days and made his way to the Forestry Office,
where he applied for a job as laborer. He got it. In a
few days he was promoted to chief of apprentices Si
Forestry meant a certain knowledge of surveying, and
this Froebel soon acquired. Then came map-making,
and that was only fun. From map-making to architec-
ture is but a step, and Froebel quit the woods to work
as assistant to an architect at ten pounds a year and
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FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

found. It was confining work, and a trifle more exacting
than he had expected — it required a deal of mathematics,
and mathematics was FroebeFs short suit. Froebel was
disappointed and so was his employer — ^when something
happened. It usually does in books, and in life, always.

251

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

ENIUS has its prototype. Before Froebel
comes Pestalozzi, the Swiss, who studied
theology and law, and then abandoned them
both as futile to human evolution, and turned
his attention to teaching. Pestalozzi was inspired by
Jean Jacques Rousseau, and read his ** Emile *' religi-
ously. To teach by natural methods and mix work and
study, and make both play, was his theme. Pestalozzi
believed in teaching out of doors, because children are
both barbaric and nomadic — they want to go some-
where. His was the Aristotle method, as opposed to
those of the closet and the cloister. But he made the
mistake of saying that teaching should be taken out
of the hands and homes of the clergy, and then the
clergy said a few things about him.
Pestalozzi at first met with very meager encouragement.
Only poor and ignorant people entrusted their children
to his care, and some of the parents were actually paid
in money for the services of the children. The thought
that the children were getting an education and being
useful at the same time was quite beyond their com-
prehension 38 5S

Pestalozzi educated by stealth. At first he took several
boys and girls of eight, ten or twelve years of age, and
had them work with him in his garden. They cared for
fowls, looked after the sheep, milked the cows. The
master worked with them, and as they worked they
talked. Going to and from their duties, Pestalozzi would
252

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

call their attention to the wild birds, and to the flowers,
plants and weeds. They would draw pictures of things,
make collections of leaves and flowers, and keep a record
of thdir observations and discoveries. Through keeping
these records they learned to read and write and
acquired the use of simple mathematics. Things they
did not understand they would read about in the books
found in the teacher's library. But books were second-
ary and quite incidental in the scheme of study. When
work seemed to become irksome they would all stop
and play games. At other times they would sit and
just talk about what their work happened to suggest.
If the weather was unpleasant, there was a shop where
they made hoes and rakes and other tools they needed.
They also built bird-houses, and made simple pieces of
furniture, so all the pupils, girls and boys, became more
or less familiar with carpenter's and blacksmith's tools.
They patched their shoes, mended their clothing, and
at times prepared their own food.
Pestalozzi found that the number of pupils he could
look after in this way was not more than ten. But to
his own satisfaction, at least, he proved that children
taught by his method surpassed those who were given
the regular set courses of instruction. His chief diffi-
culties lay in the fact that the home did not co-operate
with the school, and that there was always a tendency
to ** return to the blanket."

Pestalozzi wrote accounts of his experiments and

253

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

emphasized his belief that we should educate through
the child's natural activities ; also that all growth should
be pleasurable. His shibboleth was, ** From within,
out/* He thought education was a development and
not an acquirement.

One of Pestalozzi*s little pamphlets fell into the hands
of Friedrich Froebel, architect's assistant, at Frank-
fort 58 5S

Froebel was twenty-two years old, and Fate had tossed
him around from one thing to another since babyhood.
All of his experiences had been of a kind that prepared
his mind for the theories that Pestalozzi expressed 58
Besides that, architecture had begun to pall upon him.
** Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." This
was said in derision, but it holds a grain of truth 58
Froebel had a great desire to teach. Now, in Frankfort
there was a Model School or a school for teachers, of
which one Herr Gruner was master. This school was
actually carrying out some of the practical methods
suggested by Pestalozzi. Quite by accident Gruner and
Froebel met. Gruner wanted a teacher who could teach
by the Pestalozzi methods. Froebel straightway applied
to Herr Gruner for the position. He was accepted as a
combination janitor and instructor and worked for his
board and ten marks, or two and a half dollars a week.
^The good-cheer and enthusiasm of Froebel won
Gruner's heart. Together they discussed Pestalozzi
and his works, read all that he had written, and opened
254

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

up a correspondence with the great man. This led to
an invitation that Froebel should visit him at his farm-
school, near Yverdon, in Switzerland.
Gruner supplied Froebel the necessary money to replace
his very seedy clothes for something better, and the
young man started away. It was a walk of more than
two hundred miles, but youth and enthusiasm count
such a tramp as an enjoyable trifle. Froebel wore his
seedy clothes and carried his good ones, and so he
appeared before the master spick and span.
Pestalozzi was sixty years old at this time, and his
hopes for the ** new method " were still high. He had
met opposition, ridicule and indifference, and had spent
most of his little fortune in the fight, but he was still
at it and resolved to die in the harness.
Froebel was not disappointed in Pestalozzi, and cer-
tainly Pestalozzi was delighted and a bit amused at
the earnestness of the young man. Pestalozzi was
working in a very economical way, but all the place
lacked Froebel, in his exuberant imagination, made good.
^ Froebel found much, for he had brought much with
him 33 53

255

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

ROEBEL returned to Frankfort from his
visit to Pestalozzi, full of enthusiasm, and
that is the commodity without which no
teacher succeeds. Gruner allowed him to
gravitate. And soon FroebeFs room was the central
point of interest for the whole school. But trouble
was ahead for Froebel.

He had no college degrees. His pedagogic pedigree was
very short. He hoped to live down his university record,
but it followed him. Gruner*s school was under govern-
ment inspection, and the gentlemen with double chins,
who came from time to time to look the place over,
asked who this enthusiastic young person was, and why
had the worthy janitor and ex-forester been so honored
by promotion 58 53

In truth, during his life, Froebel never quite escaped
the taunt that he was not an educated man. That is
to say, no college had ever supplied him an alphabetic
appendage. He had been a forester, a farmer, an archi-
tect, a guardian for boys and a teacher of women, but no
institution had ever said officially he was fit to teach men.
^ Gruner tried to explain that there are two kinds of
teachers: people who are teachers by nature, and those
who have acquired the methods by long study. The
first, having little to learn, and a love for the child, with
a spontaneous quality of giving their all, succeed best.
^But poor Gruner's explanation did not explain.
Then the matter was gently explained to Froebel, and
256

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

he saw that in order to hold a place as teacher he must
acquire a past. ** Time will adjust it," he said, and
started away on a second visit to Pestalozzi. His plan
was to remain with the master long enough so he could
secure a certificate of proficiency.
Again Pestalozzi welcomed the young man, and he
slipped easily into the household and became both pupil
and teacher. His willingness to work — to do the task
that lay nearest him — his good-nature, his gratitude,
won all hearts.

At this time the plan of sending boys to college with a
tutor who was both a companion and a teacher, was
in vogue with those who could afford it. It will be
remembered that William and Alexander von Hum-
boldt received their early education in this way — going
with their tutor from university to university, teacher
and pupils entering as special students, getting into
the atmosphere of the place, soaking themselves full
of it, and then going on.

And now behold, through Gruner or Pestalozzi or both,
a woman of wealth with three boys to educate applied
to Froebel to come over into Macedonia and help her 38
It was in Eighteen Hundred Seven that Froebel became
tutor in the Von Holzhausen family. He was twenty-five
years old, and this was his first interview with wealth
and leisure. That he was hungry enough to appreciate
it need not be emphasized.

He got goodly glimpses of Gottingen, Berlin, and was

257

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

long enough at Jena to rub the blot oflF the 'scutcheon.
A stay at Weimar, in the Goethe country, completed
the four years' course.

The boys had grown to men, and proved their worth
in after-years; but whether they had gotten as much
from the migrations as their teacher is very doubtful.
He was ripe for opportunity — they had had a surfeit
of it 5S 53

Then came war. The order to arms and the rush of
students to obey their country's call caught Froebel
in the patriotic vortex, and he enlisted with his pupils.
^ His service was honorable, even if not brilliant, and
it had this advantage : the making of two friends, com-
panions in arms, who caught the Pestalozzian fever,
and lived out their lives preaching and teaching " the
new method."

These men were William Middendorf and Henry Lan-
genthal. This trinity of brothers evolved a bond as
beautiful as it is rare in the realm of friendship. Forty
years after their first meeting, Middendorf gave an
oration over the dead body of Froebel that lives as a
classic, breathing the love and faith that endure 58
And then Middendorf turned to his work, and dared
prison and disgrace by upholding the Kindergarten
System and the life and example of his dear, dead
friend. The Kindergarten Idea would probably have
been buried in the grave with Froebel — ^interred with
his bones — ^were it not for Middendorf and Langenthal.

258

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

HE first Kindergarten was established in
Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six, at Blanken-
burg, a little village near Keilhau. Froebel
was then fifty-four years old, happily married
to a worthy woman who certainly did not hamper his
work, even if she did not inspire it. He was childless,
that all children might call him father.
The years had gone in struggles to found Normal Schools
in Germany after the Pestalozzian and Gruner methods.
But disappointment, misunderstanding and stupidity
had followed Froebel. The set methods of the clergy,
accusations of revolution and heresy, tilts with pious
pedants as to the value of dead languages, all combined
with his own lack of business shrewdness, had wrecked
his various ventures.

Froebel's argument that women were better natural
teachers than men on account of the mother-instinct,
brought forth a retort from a learned monk to the effect
that it was indelicate if not sinful for an unmarried fe-
male, who was not a nun, to study the natures of children.
^ Parents with children old enough to go to school would
not entrust their darlings with the teaching experimenter
— this on the advice of their pastors.
Middendorf and Langenthal were still with him, part-
ners in the disgrace or failure, for none weis willing to
give up the fight for education by the natural methods.
^ A great thought and a great word came to them, all
at once — out on the mountainside!

259

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

Begin with the children before the school age, and call
it the Kindergarten!

Hurrah! They shouted for joy, and ran down the hiH
to tell Frau Froebel.

The schools they had started before had been called,
" The Institution for Teaching According to the Pesta-
lozzi Method and the Natural Activities of the Child,"
** Institution for the Encouragement and Development
of the Spontaneous Activities of the Pupil," and 'Tried-
rich FroebeFs School for the Growth of the Creative
Instinct Which Makes for a Useful Character.**
A school with such names, of course, failed. No one
could remember it long enough to send his child there
— it meant nothing to the mind not prepared for it 58
What *s in a name? Everything. Books sell or become
dead stock on the name. Commodities the same. Railroads
must have a name people are not afraid to pronounce.
^ The officers of the law came and asked to see FroebeFs
license for manufacturing. Others asked as to the
nature of his wares, and one dignitary called and asked,
"Is Herr Pestalozzi in?**

The Kindergarten! The new name took. The children
remembered it. Overworked mothers liked the word
and were glad to let the little other-mothers take the
children to the Kindergarten, certainly.
Froebel had grown used to disappointments — ^he was
an optimist by nature. He saw the good side of every-
thing, including failure.
260

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

He made the best of necessity. And now It was very-
clear to him that education must begin ** a hundred
years before the child is born/* He would reach the
home and the mother through the children. ** It will
take three generations to prove the truth of the Kinder-
garten Idea/* he said.

And so the songs, the gifts, the games — all had to be
invented, defended, tried and tried again. Pestalozzi
had a plan for teaching the youth; now a plan had to
be devised for teaching the child. Love was the key-
stone, and joy, unselfishness and unswerving faith in
the Natural or Divine impulses of humanity crowned
the structure.

261

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

ROEBEL invented the schoolma'am. That is,
he discovered the raw product and adapted
it. He even coined the word, and it struck
the world as being so very funny that we
forthwith adopted it as a term of provincial pleasantry
and quasi-reproach. The original term used was ** school
mother,'* but when it reached these friendly shores we
translated it ** schoolmarm/* Then we tittered, also
sneezed 53 33

Froebel died in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. His first
Kindergarten was not a success until he was nearly
sixty years old, but the idea had been perfecting itself
in his mind more or less unconsciously for over thirty
years 33 33

He had been thinking, writing, working, experimenting
all these years on the subject of education, and he had
become well-nigh discouraged. He had observed that
six was the ** school age.*' That is, no child could go to
school until he was six years old — then his education
began 33 33

But Froebel had been teaching in a country school
and boarding 'round, and he had discovered that long
before this the child had been learning by observing
and playing, and that these were formative influences,
quite as potent as actual school.

In the big families where Froebel boarded, he noticed
that the older girls took charge of the younger ones.
So, often a girl of ten, with dresses to her knees, carried
262

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

one baby in her arms and two toddled behind her, and
this child of ten was really the other-mother. The true
mother worked in the fields or toiled at her housework,
and the little other-mother took the children out to play
and thus amused them while the mother worked 58
The desire of Froebel wets to educate the race, but what
are a few hours a day in a schoolroom with a totally
unsympathetic home environment!
To reach and interest the mother in the problem of
education W£is well-nigh impossible. Toil, deprivation,
poverty, had killed all the romance and enthusiasm in
her heart. She was the victim of arrested development;
but the little other-mother was a child, impressionable,
immature, and she could be taught. The home must
co-operate with the school, otherwise all the school
can teach will be forgotten in the home. Froebel saw,
too, that often the little other-mother was so over-
worked in the care of her charges that she was taken
from school. Besides, the idea was abroad that educa-
tion was mostly for boys, anyway.
And here Froebel stepped in and proved himself a law-
breaker, just as Ben Lindsey was when he inaugurated
the juvenile court and waived the entire established
legal procedure, even to the omission of swearing his
witnesses, and believed in the little truant even though
he lied. Froebel told the little other-mothers to come
to school anyway and bring the babies with them 5S
And then he set to work showing these girls how to

263

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

amuse, divert and teach the babies. And he used to
say the babies taught him.

Some of these half-grown girls showed a rare adapta-
bility as teachers. They combined mother-love and the
teaching instinct 3S Froebel utilized their services in
teaching others in order that he might teach them 58
He saw that the teacher is the one who gets the most
out of the lessons, and that the true teacher is a learner.
These girl teachers he called school-mothers, and thus
was evolved the word and the person.
Froebel founded the first normal and model school for
the education of women as teachers, and this was less
than a hundred years ago.

The years went by and the little mothers had children
of their own, and these children were the ones that
formed the first actual, genuine kindergarten 3S Also,
these were the mothers who formed the first mothers'
clubs 5S And it was the success of these clubs that
attracted the attention of the authorities, who could
not imagine any other purpose for a club than to hatch
a plot against the government.

Anyway, a system which taught that women were just
as wise, just as good and just as capable as men — just
as well fitted by nature to teach — ^would upset the
clergy. If women can break into the school, they will
also break into the church. Moreover, the encourage-
ment of play was atrocious. Mein Gott, or words to
that effect, play in a schoolroom! Why, even a fool
264

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

would know that that is the one thing that stood in
the way of education, the one fly in the pedagogic oint-
ment. If Mynheer Froebel would please invent a way
to do away with play in schoolrooms, he would be given
a pension.

The idea that children were good by nature was rank
heresy. Where does the doctrine of regeneration come
in, and how about being born again! The natural man
is at enmity toward God. We are conceived in sin and
born in iniquity. The Bible says it again and again 3&
And here comes a man who thinks he knows more
than all the priests and scholars who have ever lived,
and fills the heads of fool women with the idea that
they are born to teach instead of to work in the fields
and keep house and wait on men.

Mein Gott in Himmel, the women know too much,
already! If this thing keeps on, men will have to get
off the earth, and women and children will run the
world, and do it by means of play. Aha! What does
Solomon say? Spare the rod and spoil the child. Aber
nicht, say these girls.

This thing has got to stop before Germany becomes
the joke of mankind — the cat-o* -nine- tails for anybody
who uses the word kindergarten!

265

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

UFFER little children to come unto me, and
forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom
of Heaven." Had the man who uttered these
words been given a little encouragement, he
probably would have inaugurated a child-garden and
provided a place and environment where little souls
could have bloomed and blossomed. He was by nature
a teacher, and his best pupils were women and children.
Male men are apt to think they already know and so
are immune from ideas.

Jerusalem, nineteen hundred years ago, was about
where Berlin was in Eighteen Hundred Fifty. In both
instances the proud priest and the aristocrat-soldier
were supreme. And both were quite satisfied with their
own mental attainments and educational methods. They
were sincere. It was a very similar combination that
crucified Jesus to that which placed an interdict on
Friedrich Froebel, making the Kindergarten a crime,
and causing the speedy death of one of the gentlest,
noblest, purest men who have ever blessed this earth.
^ Froebel was just seventy when he passed out. ** His
eye was not dimmed nor his natural force abated " —
he was filled with enthusiasm and hope as never before.
His ideas were spreading — success, at last, was at the
door, he had interested the women and proved the
fitness of women to teach — his mothers' clubs were
numerous — love was the watchword. And in the midst
of this flowering time, the official order came, without
266

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

warning, apology or explanation, and from which there
was no appeal. The same savagery, chilled with fear,
that sent Richard Wagner into exile, crushed the life
and broke the heart of Friedrich Froebel. But these
names now are the pride and glory of the land that
once scorned them. Men who govern should be those
with a reasonable doubt concerning their own infalli-
bility, and an earnest faith in men, women and children.
To teach is better than to rule. We are all children in
the Kindergarten of God.

267

HYPATIA

Neo-Platonism is a progressive philosophy, and does
not expect to state final conditions to men whose minds
"^ are finite. Life is an unfoldment, and the further we
travel the more truth we can comprehend. To under-
stand the things that are at our door is the best prepa-

I ration for understanding those that lie beyond.

\ — Hypatia

\

Tkc^y^' '■ •

^.,

,.^

r^..^

HYPATIA

HYPATIA

HE father of Hypatia was Theon,
a noted mathematician and astron-
omer of Alexandria. He would have
been regarded as a very great man
had he not been cast into the shadow
by his daughter. Let male parents
beware 53 53
"* At that time, astronomy and astrol-
ogy were one. Mathematics was useful, not for purposes
of civil engineering, but principally in figuring out where
a certain soul, born under a given planet, would be at
a certain time in the future.

No information comes to us about the mother of
Hypatia — ^she was so busy with housework that her
existence is a matter of assumption or a priori reasoning ;
thus, given a daughter, we assume the existence of a
mother 53 53

Hypatia was certainly the daughter of her father. He
was her tutor, teacher, playmate. All he knew he taught
to her, and before she was twenty she had been in-
formed by him of a fact which she had previously
guessed — that considerable of his so-called knowledge
was conjecture 53 53

Theon taught his daughter that all systems of religion
that pretend to teach the whole truth were to a great
degree false and fraudulent. He explained to her that

271

HYPATIA

\ his own profession of astronomy and astrology was only
/for other people. By instructing her in all religions
I she grew to know them comparatively, and so none took
i possession of her to the exclusion of new truth. To have
a religion thrust upon you, and be compelled to believe
in it or suffer social ostracism, is to be cheated of the
right to make your own. In degree it is letting another
live your life. A child does not need a religion until he
is old enough to evolve it, and then he must not be
robbed of the right of independent thinking by having
a fully-prepared plan of salvation handed out to him.
The brain nee^ds exercise as much as the body, and
vicarious thinking is as erroneous as vicarious exercise.
Strength comes from personal effort. To think is natural,
and if not intimidated or coerced the man will evolve
a philosophy of life that is useful and beneficent 5S
Religious mania is a result of dwelling on a borrowed
religion. If let alone no man would become insane on
religious topics, for the religion he would evolve would
be one of joy, laughter and love, not one of misery or
horror. The religion that contemplates misery and woe
is one devised by priestcraft for a purpose, and that
purpose is to rule and rob. From the blunt ways of
the road we get a polite system of intimidation which
makes the man pay. It is robbery reduced to a system,
and finally piously believed in by the robbers, who are
hypnotized into the belief that they are doing God's
service 53 53
272

HYPATIA

" All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must
never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final,"
said Theon to Hypatia. ** Reserve your right to think,
for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at
all." 5S 58

Theon gave lectures, and had private classes in esoterics,
wherein the innermost secrets of divinity were imparted.
Also, he had a plan for the transmutation of metals and
a recipe for perpetual youth. When he had nothing else
to do, he played games with his daughter.
At twenty-one Hypatia had mastered the so-called art
of Rhetoric, or the art of expression by vocal speech 5S
It will be remembered that the Romans considered
rhetoric, or the art of the rhetor, or orator, as first in
importance. To impress people by your personal pres-
ence they regarded as the gift of gifts.
This idea seems to have been held by the polite world
up to the Italian Renaissance, when the art of printing
was invented and the written word came to be regarded
as more important than the spoken. One lives, and the
other dies on the air, existing only in memory, growing
attenuated and diluted as it is transferred. The revival
of sculpture and painting also helped oratory to take
its proper place as one of the polite arts, and not a thing
to be centered upon to the exclusion of all else.
Theon set out to produce a perfect human being; and
whether his charts, theorems and formulas made up
a complete law of eugenics, or whether it was dumb

273

HYPATIA

luck, this we know: he nearly succeeded. Hypatia was
five feet nine, and weighed one hundred thirty-five
pounds. This when she was twenty. She could walk
ten miles without fatigue; swim, row, ride horseback
and climb mountains. Through a series of gentle
calisthenics invented by her father, combined with
breathing exercises, she had developed a body of rarest
^ grace. Her head had corners, as once Professor O. S.
Fowler told us that a woman's head must have, if she
is to think and act with purpose and precision.
So having evolved this rare beauty of face, feature and
bodily grace, convbined with superior strength and
vitality, Hypatia took up her father's work and gave
lectures on astronomy, mathematics, astrology and
rhetoric, while he completed his scheme for the trans-
mutation of metals. Hypatia*s voice was flute-like,
and used always well within its compass, so as never
to rasp or tire the organs. Theon knew the proper care
of nose and throat, a knowledge which with us moderns
is all too rare. Hypatia told of and practised the vocal
ellipse, the pause, the glide, the slide and the gentle,
deliberate tones that please and impress. That the
law of suggestion was known to her was very evident,
and certain it is that she practised hypnotism in her
classes, and seemed to know as much about the origin
of the mysterious agent as we do now, even though
she never tagged or labeled it.

One very vital thought she worked out was, that the
274

HYPATIA

young mind is plastic, impressionable and accepts with-
out question all that it is told. The young receive their
ideas from their elders, and ideas once impressed upon
this plastic plate of the mind can not be removed 33
Said Hypatia: ** Fables should be taught as fables,
myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To
teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing.
The child-mind accepts and believes them, and only
through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in
after-years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for )
a superstition quite 2is quickly as for a living truth —
often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you
can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of
view, and so is changeable.**

Gradually, over the mind of the beautiful and gifted ;
Hypatia, there came stealing a doubt concerning
the value of her own acquirements, since these were
** acquirements,** and not evolutions or convictions
gathered from experience, but things implanted upon
her plastic mind by her father.
In this train of thought Hypatia had taken a step in
advance of her father, for he seems to have had a dog-
matic belief in a few things incapable of demonstration ;
but these things he taught to the plastic mind, just
the same as the things he knew. Theon was a dogmatic
liberal. Possibly the difference between an illiberal
Unitarian and a liberal Catholic is microscopic. -v
Hypatia clearly saw that knowledge is the distilled

275

HYPATIA

essence of our intuitions, corroborated by experience.
But belief is the impress made upon our minds when
we are under the spell of or in subjection to another 5S
These things caused the poor girl many unhappy hours,
which fact, in itself, is proof of her greatness. Only
superior people have a capacity for doubting.
Probably not one person in a million ever gets away
far enough from his mind to take a look at it, and see
the wheels go round. Opinions become ossified and the
man goes through life hypnotizing others, never realiz-
ing for an instant that in youth he was hypnotized and
that he has never been able to cast off the hypnosis S&
This is what our pious friends mean when they say,
** Give me the child until he is ten years old and you
may have him afterward." That is, they can take the
child in his plastic age and make impressions on his
mind that are indelible. Reared in an orthodox Jewish
family a child will grow up a dogmatic Jew, and argue
you on the Talmud six nights and days together 38
Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, the same. I once knew
an Arapahoe Indian who was taken to Massachusetts
when four years old. He grew up not only with New
England prejudices, but with a New England accent,
and saved his pennies to give to missionaries that they
might ** convert '* the Red Men.
iWhen the suspicion seized upon the soul of Hypatia
ithat her mind was but a wax impression taken from
her father's, she began to make plans to get away from
^ 276

HYPATIA

him. Her efforts at explanations were futile, but when
placed upon the general ground that she wished to
travel, see the world and meet people of learning and
worth, her father acquiesced and she started away on
her journeyings. He wanted to go, too, but this was
the one thing she did not desire, and he never knew
nor could know why.

She spent several months at Athens, where her youth,
beauty and learning won her entry into the houses
of the most eminent. It was the same at Rome and
in various other cities of Italy. Money may give you
access to good society, but talent is always an open
sesame. She traveled like a princess and was received
as one, yet she had no title nor claim to nobility nor
station. Beauty of itself is not a credential — rather it
is an object of suspicion, unless it goes with intellect 58
Hj^atia gave lectures on mathematics; and there was
a fallacy abroad then as there is now that the feminine
mind is not mathematical. That the great men whom
Hypatia met in each city were first amazed and then
abashed by her proficiency in mathematics is quite
probable. Some few male professors being in that
peculiar baldheaded hypnotic state when feminine
charms dazzle and lure, listened in rapture as Hypatia
dissolved logarithms and melted calculi, and not under-
standing a word she said, declared that she was the
goddess Minerva, reincarnated. Her coldness on near
approach confirmed their suspicions.

277

HYPATIA

UST how long a time Hypatia spent upon
her pilgrimage, visiting all of the great liv-
ing philosophers, we do not know. Some
accounts have it one year, others ten 3S
Probably the pilgrimages were extended over a good
ipmany years, and were not continuous. Several phi-
/ losophers proved their humanity by offering to marry
(her, and a prince or two did likewise, we are credibly
informed. To these persistent suitors, however, Hypatia
gently broke the news that she was wedded to truth,
which is certainly a pretty speech, even if it is poor
logic. The fact was, however, that Hypatia never met
a man whose mind matched her own, otherwise logic
would have bolstered love, instead of discarding it 5S
Travel, public speaking and meeting people of note
form a strong trinity of good things. The active mind
is the young mind, and it is more than the dream of a
poet which declares that Hypatia was always young
and always beautiful, and that even Father Time was
so in love with her that he refused to take toll from
her, as he passed with his hourglass and scythe Si
jln degree she had followed the example of her great
prototype, Plotinus, and had made herself master of
\all religions. She knew too much of all philosophies
to believe implicitly in any. Alexandria was then the
j intellectual center of the world. People who resided
(there called it the hub of the universe. It was the meet-
ing-place of the East and the West.
278

HYPATIA

And Hypatia, with her Thursday lectures, was the chief
intellectual factor of Alexeuidria.
Her philosophy she called Neo-Platonism. It was Plato
distilled through the psychic alembic of Hypatia. Just
why the human mind harks back and likes to confirm
itself by building on another, it would be interesting
to inquire. To explain Moses; to supply a key to the
Scriptures; to found a new School of Philosophy on
the assumption that Plato was right, but was not
understood until the Then and There, is alluring 3S
And now the pilgrims came from Athens, and Rome,
and the Islands of the Sea to sit at the feet of Hypatia.

279

HYPATIA

1-1

YPATI A was born in the year Three Hundred
Seventy, and died in Four Hundred Thirty.
She exerted a|i influence in Alexandria not un-
Hke that which Mrs. Eddy exerted in Boston.
<i She was a person who divided society into two parts:
those who regarded her as an oracle of light, and those
1 who looked upon her as an emissary of darkness.
Strong men paid her the compliment of using immoder-
ate language concerning her teaching. But whether they
spoke ill or well of her matters little now. The point is
this: they screeched, sneezed, or smiled on those who
refused to acknowledge the power of Hypatia. Some
professors of learning tried to waive her; priests gently
pooh-poohed her; and some elevated an eyebrow and
asked how the name was spelled. Others, still, inquired,
** Is she sincere? **
^ She was the Ralph Waldo Emerson of her day. Her
\ philosophy was Transcendentalism. In fact, she might
be spoken of as the original charter member of the
; Concord School of Philosophy. Her theme was the
/ New Thought, for New Thought is the oldest form
of thought of which we know. Its distinguishing feature
is its antiquity. Socrates was really the first to express
the New Thought, and he got his cue from Pythagoras.
^>^ The ambition of Hypatia was to revive the flowering-
ime of Greece, when Socrates and Plato walked arm
in arm through the streets of Athens, followed by the
greatest group of intellectuals the world has ever seen 5S
280

HYPATIA

It was charged against Hypatia that Aspasla was her
ideal, and that her ambition was to follow in the foot-
steps of the woman who was beloved by Pericles. If so,
it was an ambition worthy of a very great soul. Hypatia,
however, did not have her Pericles, and never married.
That she should have had love experiences was quite
natural, and that various imaginary romances should
have been credited to her was also to be expected 5S
Hypatia was nearly a thousand years removed from the
time of Pericles and Aspasia, but to bridge the gulf of
time with imagination was easy. Yet Hypatia thought
that the New Platonism should surpass the old, for
the world had had the Age of Augustus to build upon.
fl Hypatia*s immediate prototype was Plotinus, who
was born two hundred four years after Christ, and
lived to be seventy. Plotinus was the first person to
use the phrase ** Neo-Platonism,'* and so the philosophy
of Hypatia might be called ** The New Neo-Platonism.'*
^ To know but one religion is not to know that one 5S
In fact, superstition consists in this one thing — faith
in one religion, to the exclusion of all others.
To know one philosophy is to know none. They are all
comparative, and each serves as a small arc of the circle.
A man living in a certain environment, with a certain
outlook, describes the things he sees; and out of these,
plus what he imagines, is shaped his philosophy of life.
If he is repressed, suppressed, frightened, he will not
see very much, and what he does see will be out of focus.

281

HYPATIA

Spiritual strabismus and mental myopia are the results
of vicarious peeps at the universe. All formal religions
have taught that to look for yourself was bad. The
peephole through the roof of his garret cost Copernicus
his liberty, but it was worth the price.
Plotinus made a study of all philosophies — all religions.
He traveled through Egypt, Greece, Assyria, India.
He became an ** adept '*, and discovered how easily
the priest drifts into priestcraft, and fraud steps in with
legerdemain and miracle to amend the truth. As if to
love humanity were not enough to recommend the man,
they have him turn water into wine and walk on the water.
^Out of the labyrinth of history and speculation Plotinus
returned to Plato £is a basis or starting-point for all of
the truth which man can comprehend. Plotinus believed
in all religions, but had absolute faith in none. It will
be remembered that Aristotle and Plato parted as to
the relative value of poetry and science — science being
the systematized facts of Nature. Plotinus comes in and
says that both were right, and each was like every good
man who exaggerates the importance of his own calling.
In his ability to see the good in all things, Hypatia
placed Plotinus ahead of Plato, but even then she says:
** Had there been no Plato, there would have been no
Plotinus; although Plotinus surpassed Plato, yet it is
plain that Plato, the inspirer of Plotinus and so many
more, is the one man whom philosophy can not spare.
Hail Plato!!"
282

HYPATIA

HE writings of Hypatia have all disappeared,
save as her words come to us, quoted by her
contemporaries. If the Essays of Emerson
should all be swept away, the man would
still live in the quotations from his pen, given to us by
every writer of worth who has put pencil to paper during
the last fifty years. So lives Sappho, and thus did Charles
Kingsley secure the composite of the great woman who
lives and throbs through his book. Legend pictures her
as rarely beautiful, with grace, poise and power, plus.
^ She was sixty when she died. History kindly records
it forty-five — and all picture her as a beautiful and
attractive woman to the last. The psychic effects of a
gracefully-gowned first reader, with sonorous voice,
using gesture with economy, and packing the pauses
with feeling, have never been fully formulated, analyzed
and explained. Throngs came to hear Hypatia lecture —
came from long distances, and listened hungrily, and
probably all they took away was what they brought,
except a great feeling of exhilaration and enthusiasm.
To send the hearer away stepping light, and his heart
beating fast — this is oratory — which is n't so much to
bestow facts, as it is to impart a feeling. This Hypatia
surely did. Her theme was Neo-Platonism. ** Neo "
means new, and all New Thought harks back to Plato,
who was the mouthpiece of Socrates. ** Say what you
will, you *11 find it all in Plato.*' Neo-Platonism is our
New Thought, and New Thought is Neo-Platonism.

283

i

^

HYPATIA

^ There are two kinds of thought: New Thought and
\ Secondhand Thought. New Thought is made up of
I thoughts you, yourself, think. The other kind is supplied
X i to you by jobbers. The distinguishing feature of New

Thought is its antiquity. Of necessity it is older than
\ \ Secondhand Thought. All genuine New Thought is true

»v 1 for the person who thinks it. It only turns sour and

r|* aQ S becomes error when not used, and when the owner
I forces another to accept it. It then becomes a second-
I hand revelation. All New Thought is revelation, and
j secondhand revelations are errors half -soled with
stupidity and heeled with greed.
Very often we are inspired to think by others, but in
our hearts we have the New Thought; and the person,
the book, the incident, merely remind us that it is
already ours. New Thought is always simple; Second-
hand Thought is abstruse, complex, patched, peculiar,
costly, and is passed out to be accepted, not understood.
That no one comprehends it is often regarded as a
recommendation.

For instance, ** Thou shalt not make unto thyself any
graven image," is Secondhand Thought. The first man
who said it may have known what it meant, but surely
it is nothing to us. However, that does not keep us from
piously repeating it, and having our children memorize
it53 5S

We model in clay or wax, and carve if we can, and
give honors to those who do, and this is well. This
284

HYPATIA

commandment is founded on the fallacy that graven
images are gods, whatever that is. The command adds
nothing to our happiness, nor does it shape our conduct,
nor influence our habits. Everybody knows amd admits
its futility, yet we are unable to eliminate it from our
theological system. It is strictly secondhand — ^worse,
it is junk.

Conversely, the admonition, ** Be gentle and keep your
voice low,** is New Thought, since all but savages know
its truth, comprehend its import, and appreciate its
excellence 58 38

Dealers in Secondhand Thought always declare that
theirs is the only genuine, and that all other is spurious
and dangerous.

Dealers in New Thought say, ** Take this only sis it
appeals to you as your own — accept it all, or in part,
or reject it all — and in any event, do not believe it
merely because 1 say so."

New Thought is founded on the laws of your own na-
ture, and its shibboleth is, ** Know Thyself."
Secondhand Thought is founded on authority, and its
war-cry is, ** Pay and Obey."

New Thought offers you no promise of paradise or
eternal bliss if you accept it; nor does it threaten you
with everlasting hell, if you don't. All it offers is unend-
ing work, constant effort, new difficulties; beyond each
success is a new trial. Its only satisfactions are that
you are allowing your life to unfold itself according to

285

HYPATIA

the laws of Its nature. And these laws are divine, there-
fore you yourself are divine, just as you allow the divine
to possess your being. New Thought allows the currents
of divinity to flow through you unobstructed.
Secondhand Thought affords no plan of elimination;
it tends to congestion, inflammation, disease and dis-
integration si 5S

New Thought holds all things lightly, gently, easily —
even thought. It works for a healthy circulation, and
tends to health, happiness and well-being now and
hereafter. It does not believe in violence, force, coercion
or resentment, because all these things react on the
doer. It has faith that all men, if not interfered with
by other men, will eventually evolve New Thought,
and do for themselves what is best and right, beautiful
and true 3S 53

Secondhand Thought has always had first in its mind
the welfare of the dealer. The rights of the consumer,
beyond keeping him in subjection, were not considered.
Indeed, its chief recommendation has been that ** it is
a good police system.*'

New Thought considers only the user. To ** Know
Thyself ** is all there is of it.

When a creator of New Thought goes into the business
of retailing his product, he often forgets to live it, and
soon is transformed into a dealer in Secondhand
Thought 38 38

That is the way all purveyors in secondhand revelation
286

HYPATIA

begin. In their anxiety to succeed, they call in the
police. The blessing that is compulsory is not wholly
good, and any system of morals which has to be forced
on us is immoral. New Thought is free thought. Its pen-
alty is responsibility. You either have to live it, or else
lose it. Its reward is Freedom.

287

HYPATIA

T was only a little more than a hundred years
before the time of Hypatia that the Roman
Empire became Christian. When Constantine
embraced Christianity, all of his loyal subjects
were from that moment Christians — Christians by edict,
but Pagans by character, for the natures of men can not
be changed by the passing of a resolution. From that
time every Pagan temple became a Christian church,
and every Pagan priest a Christian preacher.
Alexandria was under the rule of a Roman Prefect,
or Governor. It had been the policy of Rome to exercise
great tolerance in religious matters. There was a State
Religion, to be sure, but it was for the nobility or those
who helped make the State possible. To look after the
thinking of the plain people was quite superfluous —
they were allowed their vagaries.

The Empire had been bold, brazen, cruel, coercive in
its lust for power, but people who paid were reasonably
safe. And now the Church was coming into competition
with the State and endeavoring to reduce spoliation
to a system.

To keep the people down and under by mental sup-
pression— ^by the engine of superstition — ^were cheaper
and more effective than to employ force or resort to
the old-time methods of shows, spectacles, pensions
and costly diversions. When the Church took on the
functions of the State, and sought to substitute the
gentle Christ for Caesar, she had to recast the teachings
288

HYPATIA

of Christ. Then for the first time coercion and love
dwelt side by side. ** Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,*'
and like passages were slipped into the Scriptures 2is
matters of wise expediency. This was continued for
many hundred years, and was considered quite proper
and legitimate. It was slavery under a more subtle form.
^The Bishop of Alexandria clashed with Orestes the
Prefect. To hold the people under by psychologic
methods was better than the old plans of alternate
bribery and force — so argued the Bishop.
I Orestes had come under the spell of Hypatia, and the
i^Republic of Plato was saturating his mind.
,5^ r* To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punish-

4ment in another world is just as base as to use force,*'
jsaid Hypatia in one of her lectures. Orestes sat in the
audience and as she spoke the words he clapped his
hands. The news was carried to the Bishop, who gently
declared that he would excommunicate him.
Orestes sent word back that the Emperor should be
informed of how this Bishop was misusing his office
by making threats of where he could land people he
did not like, in another world. Neither the Bishop nor
the Prefect could unseat each other — both derived their

! power from the Emperor. For Orestes to grow interested
in the teachings of Hypatia, instead of siding with the

j Bishop, was looked upon by the loyalists as little short

{joi treason 58 5S

289

^1

HYPATIA

I Orestes tried to defend himself by declaring that the

' policy of the Caesars had always been one of great
leniency toward all schools of philosophy. Then he

< quoted Hypatia to the effect that a fixed, formal and
dogmatic religion would paralyze the minds of men
and make the race, in time, incapable of thought 38
Therefore, the Bishop should keep his place, and not
try to usurp the functions of the police. In fact, it was
better to think wrongly than not to think at all. We
learn to think by thinking, and if the threats of the
Bishop were believed at all, it would mean the death
of science and philosophy.

The Bishop made answer by declaring that Hypatia
was endeavoring to found a Church of her own, with
Pagan Greece as a basis. He intimated, too, that the
relationship of Orestes with Hypatia was very much
the same as that which once existed between Cleopatra
and Mark Antony. He called her ** that daughter of
Ptolemy," and by hints and suggestions made it appear
that she would, if she could, set up an Egyptian Empire
in this same city of Alexandria where Cleopatra once
so proudly reigned.

\The excitement increased. The followers of Hypatia
Iwere necessarily few in numbers. They were thinkers
j — ^and to think is a task. To believe is easy. The Bishop

\ promised his followers a paradise of ease and rest. He

also threatened disbelievers with the pains of hell. A

, promise on this side — a threat on that ! Is it not a wonder

290

HYPATIA

that a man ever lived who put his honest thought againstV
such teaching when launched by men clothed in almost
absolute authority!

Hypatia might have lived yesterday, and her death at
the hands of a mob was an accident that might have
occurred in Boston, where a respectable company once
threw a rope around the neck of a good man and ran
him through streets supposed to be sacred to liberty
and free speech.

A mob is made up of cotton waste, saturated with oil,
and a focused idea causes spontaneous combustion.
Let a fire occur in almost any New York State village,
and the town turns wrecker, and loot looms large in
the limited brain of the villager. Civilization is a veneer.
^ When one sees emotionalism run riot at an evangel-
istic revival, and five thousand people are trooping
through an undesirable district at midnight, how long,
think you, would a strong voice of opposition be toler-
ated?

Hypatia was set upon by a religious mob as she was
going in her carriage from her lecture-hall to her home.
She was dragged to a near-by church with the intent I
of making her publicly recant, but the embers became \
a blaze, and the blaze became a conflagration, and the V
leaders lost control. The woman's clothes were torn [
from her back, her hair torn from her head, her body I
beaten to a pulp, dismembered, and then to hide all /
traces of the crime and distribute the guilt so no one J

291

HYPATIA

/ person could be blamed, a funeral-pyre quickly con-
j sumed the remains of what but an hour before had been
] a human being. Daylight came, and the sun*s rays
could not locate the guilty ones.

Orestes made a report of the affair, resigned his office,
asked the Government at Rome to investigate, and
fled from the city. Had Orestes endeavored to use his
soldiery against the Bishop, the men in the ranks would
.have revolted. The investigation was postponed from
Ntime to time for lack of witnesses, and finally it was
given out by the Bishop that Hypatia had gone to
Athens, and there had been no mob and no tragedy.
^The Bishop nominated a successor to Orestes, and
the new official was confirmed.
Dogmatism as a police system was supreme.
It continued until the time of Dante, or the Italian
Renaissance. The reign of Religious Dogmatism was
supreme for well-nigh a thousand years — ^we call it
the Dark Ages.

292

SAINT BENEDICT

If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts, if with

wish as a guest to dwell in the monastery, and will be

content with the customs which he finds in the place,

and do not perchance by his lavishness disturb the

monastery, but is simply content with what he finds:

he shall be received, for as long a time as he desires.

If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it,

reasonably, and with the humility of charity, the Abbot

shall discuss it prudently, lest perchance God had sent

for this very thing. But, if he have been found gossipy

and contumacious in the time of his sojourn as guest,

not only ought he not to be joined to the body of the

monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly,

that he must depart. If he does not go, let two stout

monks, in the name of God, explain the matter to him.

— St Benedict

SAINT BENEDICT

ST. BENEDICT

S the traveler journeys through South-
ern Italy, Sicily and certain parts
of what was Ancient Greece, he will
see broken arches, parts of viaducts,
and now and again a single, beau-
tiful column pointing to the sky.
All about is the desert or solitary
pastures, and only this white mile-
stone, marking the path of the centuries and telling in
its own silent, solemn and impressive way of a day that
is dead.

In the Fifth Century a monk called Simeon the Syrian,
and known to us as Simeon Stylites, having taken the
vow of chastity, poverty and obedience, began to fear
greatly lest he might not be true to his pledge. And
that he might live absolutely beyond reproach, always
in public view, free from temptation, and free from the
tongue of scandal, he decided to live in the world, and
still not be of it. To this end he climbed to the top of a
marble column, sixty feet high, and there on the cap-
stone he lived a life beyond reproach.
Simeon was then twenty-four years old.
The environment was circumscribed, but there was
outlook, sunshine, ventilation — three good things. But
beyond these the place had certain disadvantages. The
capstone was a little less than three feet square, so

295

ST. BENEDICT

Simeon could not lie down. He slept sitting, with his
head bowed between his knees, and indeed, in this pos-
ture he passed most of his time. Any recklessness in
movement, and he would have slipped from his perilous
position and been dashed to death upon the stones
beneath 58 38

As the sun arose he stood up, just for a few moments,
and held his arms out in greeting, blessing and prayer.
Three times during the day did he thus stretch his
cramped limbs, and pray with his face to the East. At
such times those who stood near shared in his prayers,
and went away blessed and refreshed.
How did Simeon get to the top of the column?
Well, his companions at the monastery, a mile away,
said he was carried there in the night by a miraculous
power; that he went to sleep in his stone cell and awoke
on the pillar. Other monks said that Simeon had gone
to pay his respects to a fair lady, and in wrath God had
caught him and placed him on high. The probabilities
are, however, Terese, as viewed by an unbeliever, that
he shot a line over the column with a bow and arrow
and then drew up a rope ladder and ascended with ease.
^ However, in the morning the simple people of the
scattered village saw the man on the column. All day
he stayed there. The next day he was still there.
The days passed, with the scorching heat of the midday
sun, and the cool winds of the night.
Still Simeon kept his place.
296

ST. BENEDICT

The rainy season came on. When the nights were cold
and dark, Simeon sat there with bowed head, and drew
the folds of his single garment, a black robe, over his
face 33 53

Another season passed; the sun again grew warm, then
hot, and the sand-storms raged and blew, when the
people below almost lost sight of the man on the column.
Some prophesied he would be blown off, but the morn-
ing light revealed his form, naked from the waist up,
standing with hands outstretched to greet the rising sun.
fl Once each day, as darkness gathered, a monk came
with a basket containing a bottle of goat's milk and a
little loaf of black bread, and Simeon dropped down a
rope and drew up the basket.

Simeon never spoke, for words are folly, and to the
calls of saint or sinner he made no reply. He lived in a
perpetual attitude of adoration.

Did he suffer? During those first weeks he must have
suffered terribly and horribly. There was no respite nor
rest from the hard surface of the rock, and aching mus-
cles could find no change from the cramped and p)erilous
position. If he fell, it was damnation for his soul — all
were agreed as to this.

But man's body and mind accommodate themselves to
almost any condition. One thing at least, Simeon was
free from economic responsibilities, free from social
cares and intrusion. Bores with sad stories of unappre-
ciated lives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke in

297

ST. BENEDICT

upon his peace. He was not pressed for time. No frivolous
dame of tarnished fame sought to share with him his
perilous perch. The people on a slow schedule, ten min-
utes late, never irritated his temper. His correspondence
never got in a heap.

Simeon kept no track of the days, having no engage-
ments to meet, or offices to perform, beyond the prayers
at morn, midday and night.

Memory died in him, the hurts became calluses, the
world-pain died out of his heart, to cling became a habit.
Language was lost in disuse. The food he ate was mini-
mum in quantity; sensation ceased, and the dry, hot
winds reduced bodily tissue to a dessicated something
called a saint — loved, feared and reverenced for his
fortitude 33 53

This pillar, which had once graced the portal of a pagan
temple, again became a place of pious pilgrimage, and
people flocked to Simeon's rock, so that they might be
near when he stretched out his black, bony hands to the
East, and the spirit of Almighty God, for a space,
hovered close around.

So much attention did the abnegation of Simeon attract
that various other pillars, marking the ruins of art and
greatness gone, in that vicinity, were crowned by pious
monks. Their thought was to show how Christianity
had triumphed over heathenism. Imitators were numer-
ous. About that time the Bishops in assembly asked,
** Is Simeon sincere? ** To test the matter of Simeon's
298

ST. BENEDICT

pride, he was ordered to come down from his retreat.
^ As to his chastity, there was Uttle doubt, and his
poverty was beyond question ; but how about obedience
to his superiors ?

The order was shouted up to him in a Bishop's voice
— he must let down his rope, draw up a ladder, and
descend 53 5S

Straightway Simeon made preparation to obey. And
then the Bishops relented and cried, ** We have changed
our minds, and now order you to remain! **
Simeon lifted his hands in adoration and thankfulness
and renewed his lease.

And so he lived on and on and on — ^he lived on the top
of that pillar, never once descending, for thirty years.
^AU of his former companions grew a-weary; one
by one they died, and the monastery-bells tolled their
requiem as they were laid to rest. Did Simeon hear the
bells and say, *' Soon it will be my turn '* ?
Probably not. His senses had flown, for what good were
they! The young monk who now at eventide brought
the basket with the bottle of goat's milk and the loaf
of dry bread was born since Simeon had taken his place
on the pillar. '* He has always been there,*' the people
said, and crossed themselves hurriedly.
But one evening when the young monk came with his
basket, no line wets dropped from above. He waited and
then called aloud, but all in vain.

When sunrise came, there sat the monk, his face between

299

ST. BENEDICT

his knees, the folds of his black robe drawn over his

head. But he did not rise and lift his hands in prayer.

^ All day he sat there, motionless.

The people watched in whispered silence. Would he

arise at sundown and pray, and with outstretched hands

bless the assembled pilgrims?

But as they watched a vulture came sailing slowly

through the blue ether, and circled nearer and nearer;

and off on the horizon was another — and still another,

circling nearer and nearer.

300

ST. BENEDICT

N humanity's march of progress there are a
vanguard and a rearguard. The rearguard
dwindles away into a mob of camp-followers,
who follow for diversion and to escape star-
vation. Both the vanguard and the rearguard are out
of step with the main body, and therefore both are
despised by the many who make up the rank and file.
^ And yet, out of pity, the main body supplies ambu-
lances and ** slum-workers,** who aim to do ** good ** —
but this good is always for the rearguard and the camp-
followers, never for those who lead the line of march,
and take the risk of ambush and massacre.
But this scorn of the vanguard has its recompense —
often delayed, no doubt — but those who compose it
are the only ones whom history honors and Clio crowns.
If they get recognition in life, it is wrung tardily from
an ungrateful and ungracious world. And this is the
most natural thing in the world, and it would be a
miracle if it were otherwise, for the very virtue of the
vanguard consists in that their acts outrun human
sympathy 38 3S

Benedict was a scout of civilization. In his day he led
the vanguard. He found the prosperous part of the
world given over to greed and gluttony. The so-called
religious element was in partnership with fraud, super-
stition, ignorance, incompetence, and an asceticism
like that of Simeon Stylites, leading to nothing.
Men know the good and grow through experience. To

301

ST. BENEDICT

realize the worthlessness of place and position and of
riches, you must have been at some time in possession
of these. Benedict was born into a rich Roman family,
in the year Four Hundred Eighty. His parents wished
* to educate him for the law, so he would occupy a position
of honor in the State.

But at sixteen years of age, at that critical time when
nerves are vibrating between manhood and youth,
Benedict cut the umbilical domestic cord, and leaving
his robes of purple and silken finery, suddenly disap-
peared, leaving behind a note which was doubtless
meant to be reassuring and which was quite the reverse,
for it failed to tell where his mail should be forward-
ed. He had gone to live with a hermit in the fastnesses
of the mountains. He had desired to do something
peculiar, strange, unusual, unique and individual, and
now he had done it.

Back of it all was the Cosmic Urge, with a fair slip of
a girl, and meetings by stealth in the moonlight; and
then those orders from his father to give up the girl,
which he obeyed with a vengeance.
Monasticism is a reversal or a misdirection of the Cosmic
Urge. The will brought to bear in fighting temptation
might be a power for good, if used in co-operation with
Nature. But Nature to the priestly mind has always
been bad. The worldly mind was one that led to ruin.
To be good by doing good was an idea the monkish
mind had not grasped. His way of being good was to
302

ST. BENEDICT

be nothing, do nothing — just resist. Successfully to
fight temptation, the Oriental Monk regarded as an
achievement 5S 53

One day, out on that perilous and slippery rock on the
mountain-side, Benedict ceased saluting the Holy
Virgin long enough to conceive a thought. It was this:
To be acceptable to God, we must do something in the
way of positive good for man. To pray, to adore, to
wander, to suffer, is not enough. We must lighten the
burdens of the toilers and bring a little joy into their
lives. Suffering has its place, but too much suffering
would destroy the race.

Only one other man had Benedict ever heard of, who
put forth this argument, and that was Saint Jerome;
and many good men in the Church regarded Saint Je-
rome as little better than an infidel. Saint Jerome was a
student of the literature of Greece and Rome — ** Pagan
Books,** they were called, ** rivals of the Bible.** Saint
Anthony had renounced and denounced these books
and all of the learning of Paganism. Saint Anthony,
the father of Christian Monasticism, dwelt on the terri-
ble evils of intellectual pride, and had declared that the
joys of the mind were of a more subtle and devilish
character than those of the flesh.

Anthony, assisted by inertia, had won the ear of the
Church; and dirt, rags and idleness had come to be
regarded as sacred things.
Benedict took issue with Anthony.

303

ST. BENEDICT

HE Monastic Impulse is a protest against the
Cosmic Urge, or reproductive desire.
Necessarily, the Cosmic Urge is older than
the Monastic Impulse; and beyond a doubt
it will live to dance on the grave of its rival.
The Cosmic Urge is the creative instinct. It includes all
planning, purpose, desire, hope, unrest, lust and ambi-
tion. In its general sense, it is Unfulfilled Desire. It is
the voice constantly crying in the ears of success, ** Arise
and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest.*' It is the
dissatisfaction with all things done — it is our Noble
Discontent. In its first manifestation it is sex. In its
letst refinement it means the love of man and woman,
with the love of children, the home-making sense, and
an appreciation of art, music and science — ^which is
love with seeing eyes — as natural results.
Deity creates through its creatures, of which man is
the highest type. But man, evolving a small spark of
intellect, sits in judgment on his Creator, and finds the
work bad. Of all the animals, man is the only one so
far known that criticizes his environment, instead of
accepting it. And we do this because, in degree, we have
abandoned intuition before we have gotten control of
intellect 5S 5S

The Monastic Instinct is the disposition ever to look
outside of ourselves for help. We expect the Strong Man
to come and give us deliverance from our woes. All
nations have legends of saviors and heroes who came
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ST. BENEDICT

and set the captives free, and who will come again in
greater glory and mightier power and even release the
dead from their graves.

The Monastic Impulse is based on world- weariness,
with disappointed love, or sex surfeit, which is a phase
of the same thing, as a basis. Its simplest phase is a
desire for solitude.

** Mon ** means one, and monasticism is simply living
alone, apart from the world. Gradually it came to mean
living alone with others of a like mind or disposition.
^The clan is an extension of the family, and so is
originally a monastic impulse. The Group Idea is a
variant of monasticism, but if it includes men and
women, it always disintegrates with the second gener-
ation, if not before, because the Cosmic Urge catches
the members, and they mate, marry and swing the
circle 53 53

Ernst Haeckel has recently intimated his belief that
monogamy, with its exclusive life, is a diluted form of
monasticism. And his opinion seems to be that, in
order to produce the noblest race possible, we must
have a free society, with a State that reverences and
respects maternity and pensions any mother who per-
sonally cares for her child.

Monasticism and enforced monogamy often carry a
disrespect, if not a positive contempt, for motherhood,
especially free motherhood. We breed from the worst,
under the worst conditions, and as punishment God has

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ST. BENEDICT

made us a race of scrubs. If we had deliberately set
about to produce the worst, we could not do better.
fl It will at once be seen that a penalized free mother-
hood is exactly like the Monastic Impulse — a protest and
a revolt from the Cosmic Urge. Hence Ernst Haeckel,
harking back to Schopenhauer, declares that we
must place a premium upon parenthood, and the State
must subsidize all mothers, visiting them with tender-
ness, gentleness, sanctity and respect, before we shall
be able to produce a race of demigods.
The Church has aureoled and sainted the men and
women who have successfully fought the Cosmic Urge.
Emerson says, ** We are strong as we ally ourselves with
Nature, and weak as we fight against her or disregard
her.** Thus does Emerson place himself squarely in
opposition to the Church, for the Church has ever
looked upon Nature as a lure and a menace to holy
living 5S 53

Now, is it not possible that the prevalency of the Mon-
astic Impulse is proof that it is in itself a movement in
the direction of Nature? Possibly its error lies in swing-
ing out beyond the norm. A few great Churchmen have
thought so. And the greatest and best of them, so far
as I know, was Benedict. Through his efforts, monasti-
cism was made a power for good, and for a time, at
least, it served society and helped humanity on its way.
^ That the flagellants, anchorites, or monks with iron
collars, and Simeon Stylites living his life perched on a

306

ST. BENEDICT

pillar, benefited the human race — ^no one would now
argue. Simeon was simply trying to please God — to
secure salvation for his soul. His assumption was that
the world was base and bad. To be pure in heart you
must live apart from it. His persistence was the only
commendable thing about him, and this was the per-
sistence of a diseased mind. It was beautiful just as the
persistence of cancer is beautiful.

Benedict, while agreeing that the world was bad, yet
said that our business wa^ to make it better, and that
everything we did which was done merely to save our
own souls, was selfish and unworthy. He advocated
that, in order to save our own souls, we should make it
our business to save others. Also, to think too much
about your own soul was to have a soul not worth
saving. If this life is a preparation for another, as Simeon
thought, he was not preparing himself for a world where
we would care to go. The only heaven in which any sane
man or woman, be he saint or sinner, would care to
live, would be one whose inhabitants would be at liberty
to obey the Cosmic Urge just as freely as the Monastic
Impulse, and where one would be regarded as holy as
the other. So thought Saint Benedict.

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ST. BENEDICT

HERE is a natural law, well recognized and
defined by men who think, called the Law of
Diminishing Returns, sometimes referred to
as the Law of Pivotal Points.
A man starts in to take systematic exercise, and he
finds that his strength increases. He takes more exercise
and keeps on until he gets ** stale " — that is, he becomes
sore and lame. He has passed the Pivotal Point and is
getting a Diminishing Return.

In running a railroad-engine a certain amount of coal
is required to pull a train of given weight a mile, say
at the rate of fifty miles an hour. You double the amount
of your coal, and simple folks might say you double
your speed, but railroad men know better. The double
amount of coal will give you only about sixty miles
instead of fifty. Increase your coal and from this on
you get a Diminishing Return. If you insist on eighty
miles an hour, you get your speed at a terrific cost and
a terrible risk.

Another case : Your body requires a certain amount of
food — the body is an engine; food is fuel; life is com-
bustion. Better the quality and quantity of your food,
and up to a certain point you increase your strength.
Go on increasing your food and you get death. Loan
money at five percent and your investment is reasonably
secure and safe. Loan money at ten per cent and you
do not double the returns; on the contrary, you have
taken on so much risk. Loan money at twenty per cent
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ST. BENEDICT

and you will probably lose it ; for the man who borrows
at twenty per cent does not intend to pay if he can help
it 53 58

The Law of Diminishing Returns was what Oliver
Wendell Holmes had in mind when he said, ** Because I
like a pinch of salt in my soup is no reason I wish to
be immersed in brine."

Churches, preachers and religious denominations are
good things in their time and place, and up to a certain
point. Whether for you the church has passed the Piv-
otal Point is for you yourself to decide. But remember
this, because a thing is good up to a certain point, or
has been good, is no reason why it should be perpetuated.
The Law of Diminishing Returns is the natural refu-
tation of the popular fallacy that because a thing is
good you can not get too much of it.
It is this law that Abraham Lincoln had in mind when
he said, ** I object to that logic which seeks to imply
that because I wish to make the negro free, I desire a
black woman for a wife."

Benedict had spent five years in resistance before it
dawned upon him that Monasticism carried to a certain
point was excellent and fraught with good results, but
beyond that it rapidly degenerated.
To carry the plan of simplicity and asceticism to its
summit and not go beyond was now his desire.
To withdraw from society he felt was a necessity, for
the petty and selfish ambitions of Rome were revolting.

309

ST. BENEDICT

But the religious life did not for him preclude the joys
of the intellect. In his unshaven and unshorn condition,
wearing a single garment of goatskin, he dared not go
back to his home. So he proceeded to make himself
acceptable to decent people. He made a white robe,
bathed, shaved off his beard, had his hair cut, and
putting on his garments, went back to his family. The
life in the wilderness had improved his health. He had
grown in size and strength and he now, in his own
person, proved that a religious recluse was not neces-
sarily unkempt and repulsive.

His people greeted him as one raised from the dead.
Crowds followed him wherever he went. He began to
preach to them and to explain his position.
Some of his old school associates came to him.
As he explained his position, it began more and more to
justify itself in his mind. Things grow plain as we analyze
them to others — by explaining to another the matter
becomes luminous to ourselves.

To purify the monasteries and carry to them all that
was good and beautiful in the classics, was the desire
of Benedict. His wish was to reconcile the learning of
the past with Christianity, which up to that time had
been simply ascetic. It had consisted largely of repres-
sion, suppression and a killing-out of all spontaneous,
happy, natural impulses.

Very naturally, he was harshly criticized, and when he
went back to the cave where he had dwelt and tried to
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ST. BENEDICT

teach some of his old companions how to read and
write, they flew first at him, and then from him. They
declared that he was the devil in the guise of a monk;
that he wished to live both as a monk and as a man of
the world — that he wanted to eat his cake and still
keep it. By a sort of divine right he took control of
affairs, and insisted that his companions should go to
work with him, and plant a garden and raise vegetables
and fruits. Instead of depending upon charity or going
without 38 3S

The man who insists that all folks shall work, be they
holy or secular, learned or illiterate, always has a hard
road to travel. Benedict's companions declared that he
was trying to enslave them, and one of them brewed a
poison and substituted it for the simple herb tea that
Benedict drank. Being discovered, the man and his
conspirators escaped, although Benedict offered to
forgive and forget if they would go to work.
Benedict adhered to his new inspiration with a persis-
tency that never relaxed — the voice of God had called
to him that he must clear the soil of the brambles and
plant gardens.

The thorn-bush through which he had once rolled his
naked body, he now cut down and burned. He relaxed
the vigils and limited the prayers and adorations to a
few short exercises just before eating, sleeping and
going to work. He divided the day into three parts —
eight hours for work, eight hours for study, eight hours

311

ST. BENEDICT

for sleep. Then he took one-half hour from each of these
divisions for silent prayer and adoration. He argued
that good work was a prayer, and that one could pray
with his heart and lips, even as his hands swung the
ax, the sickle or the grub-hoe. All that Benedict re-
quired of others, he did himself, and through the daily
work he evolved a very strong and sturdy physique.
From the accounts that have come to us he was rather
small in stature, but in strength he surpassed any man
in his vicinity.

Miraculous accounts of his physical strength were
related, and in the minds of his simple followers he
was regarded as more than a man, which shows us that
the ideals of what a man should be, or might be, were
not high. We are told that near Benedict's first monas-
tery there was a very deep lake, made in the time of
Nero by damming up a mountain stream. Along this
lake the brambles and vines had grown in great con-
fusion. Benedict set to work to clear the ground from
this lake to his monastery, half a mile up the hillside.
One day a workman dropped an ax into the lake. Bene-
dict smiled, his lips moved in prayer and the ax came
to the surface. The story does not say that Benedict
dived to the bottom and brought up the ax, which he
probably did. The next day the owner of the ax fell
into the water, and the story goes that Benedict walked
out on the water and brought the man in on his shoul-
ders. We who do not believe that the age of miracles has
312

ST. BENEDICT

peissed, can well understand how Benedict was an
active, agile and strong swimmer, and that through
the natural powers which he evolved by living a sane
and simple life, he was able to perform many feats
which peasants round about considered miraculous.
Benedict had what has been called the Builder's Itch.
He found great joy in planning, creating and construct-
ing. He had an eye for architecture and landscape-
gardening. He utilized the materials of old Roman
temples to construct Christian churches, and from the
same quarry he took stone and built a monastery. A
Roman ruin had a lure for him. It meant building
possibilities. He stocked the lake with fish, and then
made catches that rivaled the parable of the loaves and
fishes. Only the loaves of Benedict were made from the
wheat he himself raised, and the people he fed were
the crowds who came to hear him preach the gosp>el he
himself practised — the gospel of work, moderation and
the commonsense exercise of head, hand and heart.

313

ST. BENEDICT

O Benedict came twelve disciples. But further
applications becoming numerous, to meet the
pressure Benedict kept organizing them into
groups of twelve, appointing a superior over
each group. In order to prove his sense of equality,
he had but eleven besides himself in the monastery.
He recognized that leadership was a necessity; but the
clothes he wore were no better than, and the food he
ate no different from, what the others had. Yet to
enforce discipline, rules were made and instant obe-
dience was exacted. Benedict took his turn at waiting
on the table and doing the coarsest tasks.
Were it not for the commonsense methods of life, and
the element of human service, the Christian monastery
and probably Christianity itself would not have survived.
The dogma of religion was made acceptable by blending
it with a service for humanity. And even to this day
the popular plan of proving the miracles of the Old
Testament to have been actual occurrences is to point
to the schools, hospitals and orphan asylums that
Christian people have provided.

In the efforts of Benedict to combine the life of unselfish
service with intellectual appreciation of classic litera-
ture, he naturally was misunderstood. Several times he
came near having serious collisions with the authorities
of the Church at Rome.

His preaching attracted the jealous attention of certain
churchmen, but as he was not a priest, the Pope refused
314

ST. BENEDICT

to take notice of his supposed heresies. ^ An effort was
made to compel him to become a priest, but Benedict
refused on the plea that he was not worthy. The fact
was, however, that he did not wish to be bound by the
rules of the Church.

In one sense, his was a religion inside a religion, and a
slight accident might have precipitated an opposition
denomination, just as the Protestant issue of Luther
was an accident, and the Methodism of the Wesleys,
another 53 33

Several times the opposition, in the belief that Benedict
was an enemy of the Church, went so far as to try to
kill him. And once a few pious persons in Rome induced
a company of wanton women to go out to Benedict's
monastery and disport themselves through his beautiful
grounds. This was done with two purposes in view;
one was to work the direct downfall of the Benedictines,
with the aid of the trulls, and the other was to create a
scandal among the visitors, who would carry the un-
savory news back to Rome and supply the gossips
raw stock.

Benedict was so deeply grieved by the despicable trick
that he retired to his former home, the cave in the
hillside, and there remained without food for a month.
^ But during this time of solitude his mind was busy
L with new plans. He now founded Monte Cassino. The
site is halfway between Rome and Naples, and the white,
classic lines of the buildings can be seen from the

315

ST. BENEDICT

railroad. There on the crags, from out of a mass of
green, has been played out for more than a thousand
years the drama of religious life. Death by fire and
sword has been the fate of many of the occupants.
But the years went by, new men came, the ruins were
repaired, and again the cloisters were trodden by pious
feet of holy men. Goths, Lombards, Saracens, Normans,
Spaniards, Teutons, and finally came Napoleon Bona-
parte, who confiscated the property, making the place
his home for a brief space. Later he relented and took
it from the favorite upon whom he had bestowed it
and gave it back to the Church. It then remained a
Benedictine monastery until the edict of Eighteen
Hundred Sixty-six, which, with the help of Massini
and Garibaldi, made the monastery in Italy a thing of
the past. The place is now a school — a school with a
co-ed proviso. Thus passes away the glory of the world,
in order that a greater glory shall appear.
-- Six hundred years before Benedict's day, on the site of
the cloister of Monte Cassino stood a temple to Apollo,
and just below was a grove sacred to Venus.
Two hundred years before Benedict's time the Goths
had done their work so well that even the walls of the
temple to Apollo were razed, and the sacred grove
became the home of wild beasts.

To this deserted place came Benedict and eleven men,
filled with a holy zeal to erect on this very spot an
edifice worthy of the living God. Here the practical
316

ST. BENEDICT

builder and the religious dreamer combined. If you are
going to build a building, why not build upon the walls
already laid and with blocks ready hewn and fashioned !
^ The Monte Cassino monastery of Benedict rivaled
in artistic beauty the temple that it replaced.
Man is a building animal, and the same Creative Energy
that imp)elled the Greeks and later the Romans to plan,
devise, toil and build, now played through the good
monk Benedict. His desire to create was a form of the
great Cosmic Urge, that lives eternally and is building
in America a finer, better and nobler religion than the
world has ever seen — a Religion of Humanity — a religion
of which at times Benedict caught vivid passing
glimpses, as one sees at night the landscape brilliantly
illumined by the lightning's flash.

317

ST. BENEDICT

HE motto of Benedict was ** Ecce Labora/*
These words were carved on the entrance to
every Benedictine Monastery.
The monastic idea originated in the Orient,
where Nature placed no special penalty on idleness.
Indeed, labor may have been a curse in Asia. Morality
is crystallized expediency, and both, as we are told,
are matters of geography, as well as time.
And truth it is, that north of the Mediterranean idleness
is the curse, not labor.

The rule of Benedict was not unlike that of the Shakers,
for near every monastery was a nunnery. The associ-
ation of men and women, although quite limited, was
better for both than their absolute separation, as with
the Trappists, who regard it as a sin even to look upon
the face of a woman.

The thrift and industry of the Benedictines was worthy
of Ann Lee and our friends at Lebanon. A man who
works eight hours, with fair intelligence, and does not
set out to make consumption and waste the business of
his life, grows rich. Thoreau was right — an hour a day
will support you. But Thoreau was wrong in supposing
men work only to get food, clothing and shelter. To
work only an hour a day is to evolve into a loafer. We
work not to acquire, but to become.
The group idea, cemented by able leadership and a
religious concept, is always successful. The Mormons,
Quakers, Harmonyites, Economites, and the Oneida

318

ST. BENEDICT

Community, all grew very rich, and surpassed their
neighbors not only in point of money, but in health,
happiness, intelligence and general mental grasp*
Brook Farm failed for lack of a leader with business
instinct ; but as it was, it divided up among its members
a rich legacy of spiritual and mental assets. In family
life, or what is called ** Society,** there is a constant
danger through rivalry, not in well-doing or in human
service, but in conspicuous waste and conspicuous
leisure. The religious rite of feet-washing is absolutely
lost, both as a rite and as an idea. In truth, ** good
society ** is essentially predatory in its instincts. In
communal life, or the life of a group, service and not
waste is the watchword. This must be so, since every
group, at its beginning, is held together through the
thought of service. To meet and unite on a basis of
jealous rivalry and sharp practise is unthinkable, for
these are the things that disintegrate the group.
It is an economic law that a group founded upon and
practising the idea of each member giving all, wins all.
Benedict's idea of ** Ecce labora '* made every Bene-
dictine monastery a center of wealth. Work stops
bickering, strife and undue waste. It makes for health
and strength. The reward of work is not immunity
from toil, but more work — an increased capacity for
effort Si Si

De Tocqueville gave this recipe for success: Subdue
yourself — Devote yourself.

319

ST. BENEDICT

That is to say, subdue the ego to a point where it gets
its gratification in concentrating on unselfish service.
He who does this always succeeds, for not only is he
engaged upon a plan of life in which there is little com-
petition, but he is working in line with a divine law,
the law of mutuality, which provides that all the good
you do to others, you do for yourself.
Benedictine monasticism leads straight to wealth and
great power. The Abbot of the group became a Baron.
I took the vow of poverty, and it led to an income
of twenty thousand pounds a year. I took the vow of
obedience and find myself ruler of fifty towns and
villages." These are the words which Sir Walter Scott
puts into the mouth of an Abbot, who became a Baron
through the simple law of which I have hinted. And
in his novel of ** The Abbot,** Sir Walter gives a tragic
picture of how power and wealth can be lost as well as
won. Feudalism began with the rule of the monastery.
^ Benedict was one of the world's great Captains of
Industry. And like all great entrepreneurs, he won
through utilizing the efforts of others. In picking his
Abbots, or the men to be ** father *' of each particular
group, he showed rare skill. These men learned from
him and he learned from them. One of his best men was
Cassiodorus, the man who evolved the scheme of the
scriptorium. ** To study eight hours a day was not
enough,'* said Cassiodorus. ** We should copy the great
works of literature so that every monastery shall have
320

ST. BENEDICT

a library as good as that which we have at Monte
Cassino.** He himself was an expert penman, and he
set himself the task of teaching the monks how
to write as well as how to read. ** To write beautifully
is a great joy to our God/* he said.
Benedict liked the idea, and at once put it into execu-
tion. Cassiodorus is the patron saint of every maker of
books who loves his craft.

The systematic work of the scriptorium originated in
the brain of Cassiodorus, and he was appointed by Bene-
dict to go from one monastery to another and inform
the Abbot that a voice had come from God to Benedict
saying that these precious books must be copied, and
presented to those who would prize them.
Cassiodorus had been a secretary of state under the
Emperor Theodoric, and he had also been a soldier.
He was seventy years of age when he came under the
influence of Benedict, through a chance visit to Monte
Cassino. Benedict at first ordered him to take an ax
and work with the servants at grubbing out underbrush
and preparing a field for planting. Cassiodorus obeyed,
and soon discovered that there was a joy in obedience
he had before never guessed. His name was Brebantus
Varus, but on his declaring he was going to remain and
work with Benedict, he was complimented by being
given the name of Cassiodorus, suggested by the word
Cassinum or Cassino. Cassiodorus lived to be
ninety-two, and was one of the chief factors, after

321

ST. BENEDICT

Benedict himself, in introducing the love of art and

beauty among the Benedictines.

Near Monte Cassino was a nunnery presided over by

Scholastica, the twin sister of Benedict.

Renan says that the kinship of Scholastica and Benedict

was a spiritual tie, not one of blood. If so, we respect it

none the less. Saint Gregory tells of the death of

Benedict thus:

Benedict was at the end of his career. His interview
with Totila took place in Five Hundred Forty-two, in
the year which preceded his death ; and from his earliest
days of the following year, God prepared him for his
last struggle, by requiring from him the sacrifice of
the most tender aflFection he had retained on earth. The
beautiful and touching incident of the last meeting of
Benedict and his twin sister, Scholastica, is a picture
long to remember. At the window of his cell, three days
after her death, Benedict had a vision of his dear sister's
soul entering heaven in the form of a snowy dove. He
immediately sent for the body and placed it in a sepul-
cher which he had already prepared for himself, that
death might not separate those whose souls had always
been united in God.

The death of his sister was the signal of departure for
himself. He survived her forty days. He announced his
death to several of his monks, then far from Monte
Cassino. A violent fever having seized him, he caused
himself on the sixth day of his sickness to be carried to
the chapel of Saint John the Baptist; he had before
ordered the tomb in which his sister already slept to be
opened.

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ST. BENEDICT

There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received
the holy Viaticum, then placing himself at the side of
the open grave, but at the foot of the altar, and with
his arms extended towards heaven, he died, standing,
muttering a last prayer. Such a victorious death became
that great soldier of God. He was buried by the side
of his beloved Scholastica, in a sepulcher made on the
spot where stood the altar of Apollo, which had been
replaced by another to our beloved Savior.

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ST. BENEDICT

N the very year, and at the same time, that
Justinian and Theodora were preparing the
Justinian Code, Benedict was busy devising
** The Monastic Rules.** Benedict did not put
his rules forth as final, but explained that they were
merely expedient for their time and place. In this he
was singularly modest. If one can divest himself of the
thought that there was anything ** holy ** or "sacred **
about these communal groups called ** monasteries,**
and then read these rules, he will see that they were
founded on a good knowledge of economics and a very
stern commonsense.

Humanity was the same a thousand years ago that it
is now. Benedict had to fight inertia, selfishness and
incipient paranoia, just as does the man who tries to
introduce practical socialism today. A few extracts from
this very remarkable Book of Rules will show the shrewd
Connecticut wisdom of Benedict. To hold the dowdy,
indifferent, slipshod and underdone in their proper
places, so they could not disturb or destroy the peace,
policy and prosperity of the efficient, was the task of
Benedict 53 S&

Benedict says: ** Written and formal rules are necessary
only because we are all faulty men, with a tendency
towards selfishness and disorder. When men become
wise, and also unselfish, there will be no need of rules
and laws.**

The Book of Rules by Benedict is a volume of more
324

ST. BENEDICT

than twenty thousand words. Its scope reveals an insight
that will appeal to all who have had to do with socialistic
experiments, not to mention the management of labor-
unions. Benedict was one of the industrial leaders of the
world. His life was an epoch, and his influence still abides.

325

MARY BAKER EDDY

The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are
to be found in the following postulates : that Life is God,
good and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not to be found
in the body; that Spirit is not and can not be material-
ized; that Life is not subject to death; that the spiritual
real man has no consciousness of material life or death.

— Mary Baker Eddy

^>

MARY BAKER EDDY

MARY BAKER EDDY

ET the fact be here stated that Mary
Baker Eddy was the founder of
Christian Science. This woman Uved
long £ind well.

She was alert, earnest, highly intel-
ligent, receptive. She was ever dis-
covering. We know this because she
put out a new message every little
while, or modified an old one, having come in the mean-
time into a position to get a nearer and clearer view of
the fact. The last edition of ** Science and Health *' is a
different book from the first one.

Christian Science is not a fixed, formed, fossilized,
ossified structure. Possibly it may become so. But the
probabilities are it will grow, expand, advance. Life and
growth consist in eliminating dead matter and evolv-
ing new tissue. The institution, commercial, artistic,
social, political, religious, that has ceased to grow
has begun to disintegrate.

Christian Scientists do not flee the world, renouncing
and denouncing it. As a people they are well, happy,
hopeful, enthusiastic and successful. I am fairly well
informed on the history of all great religions. In degree
I know the character of intellect possessed by the folks
who make or made up their membership. And my opinion
is, that no religion that has ever existed contained

329

MARY BAKER EDDY

so large a percentage of intelligent people, compe-
tent, safe and sane, as does Christian Science. There is
an adage to the effect that a prophet is not without
honor save in his own country.

In the case of Mary Baker Eddy, the adage just quoted
goes awry. Mrs. Eddy as long as she lived, retained the
good-will of Concord, Boston and Brookline, where she
chose to make her home. Very many of the leading men
and women of each of these cities are Christian Scien-
tists 33 53

The Christian Science Church at Concord cost upwards
of two hundred thousand dollars, and was the gift of
Mrs. Eddy. Over the entrance, cut deep in granite, are
the words, ** Presented by Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer
and Founder of Christian Science.'* As to the argument
that the truths of Christian Science have always been
known and practised by a few, Mrs. Eddy issued her
direct challenge. In all of her literature she set out the
unqualified statement that she was ** The Discoverer
and the Founder.'* She was never apologetic ; she assumed
no modesty she did not feel; she sp>oke as one having
authority, as did Moses of old, ** Thus saith the Lord!**
^ She entered into no joint debates; she did not answer
back. This intense conviction which admits of no parley
was one of the secrets of her power. For many years
the Billingsgate Calendar was directed at her upon
every possible occasion.

But Mrs. Eddy won out, and legislation and courts
330

MARY BAKER EDDY

were compelled to whistle in their hounds. Your right
to keep well in your own way is now fully recognized.
Doctors are not liable when they give innocent sweet-
ened water and call it medicine, nor do we place Chris-
tian Scientists on trial if their patients die, any more
than we do the M. D/s.

In fact, Mrs. Eddy influenced both of the so-called
sciences of medicine and theology. Even those who are
perfectly willing to deny her, and noisily discard her
tenets, are debtors to her.

Homeopathy modified the dose of all the Allopaths;
and Christian Science has attenuated the Hahneman-
nian theory of attenuations, it having been found that
the blank tablet often cures quite as effectively as the
one that is medicated. Christian Science does not shout,
rant, defy nor preach. It is poised, silent, sure, and the
flagellants, like the dervishes, are noticeable by their
absence 33 5S

The Reverend Billy Sunday is not a Christian Scientist.
The Christian Scientist does not cut into the grape;
specialize on the elevated spheroid; devote his energies
to bridge whist; cultivate the scandal microbe; join the
anvil chorus, nor shake the red rag of wordy warfare.
He is diligent in business, fervent in spirit, and accepts
what comes without protest, finding it good.
Mary Baker Eddy lived a human life. Through her
manifold exp)eriences she gathered gear — she was a very
great and wise woman. She was so great that she kept

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MARY BAKER EDDY

her own counsel, received no visitors, made no calls,
had no Thursday, wrote no letters, and even never
went to the church that she presented to her native
town. Mrs. Eddy's step was ever light, her form erect
— a slender, handsome, queenly woman. When she
passed on, in December, Nineteen Hundred Ten, in
her ninetieth year, she looked scarce more than sixty.
Her face showed experience, but not extreme age. The
day I saw her, a few years before her death, she was
dressed all in white satin and looked like a girl going
to a ball.

Her eyes were not dimmed nor her face wrinkled 33
Her hat was a milliner's dream; her gloves came to the
elbow and were becomingly wrinkled; her form was
the form of Bernhardt. Her secretary stood by the
carriage-door, his head bared. He did not offer his hand
to the lady nor seek to assist her into the carriage. He
knew his business — a sober, silent, muscular, bronzed,
farmer-like man, who evidently saw everything and
nothing 33 33

He closed the carriage-door and took his seat by the
side of the driver, who wore no livery. The men looked
like brothers. The big, brown horses started slowly
away; they wore no blinders nor check-reins — they,
too, had banished fear. The coachman drove with a
loose rein. The next day I waited in Concord to see
Mrs. Eddy again. At exactly two-fifteen the big, brown,
slow-going horses turned into Main Street. Drays pulled
332

MARY BAKER EDDY

in to the curb, automoKiles stopped, people stood on
the street corners, and some — the pilgrims — uncovered.
^ Mrs. Eddy sat back in the carriage, holding in her
white-gloved hands a big spray of apple-blossoms, the
same half-smile of satisfaction on her face — the smile
of Pope Leo the Thirteenth. The woman was a veritable
queen, and some of her devotees, not without reason,
called her the Queen of the World.
Some doubtless prayed to her — and may yet, for that
matter. Mrs. Eddy was married three times. First, to
Colonel George W. Glover, an excellent and worthy
man, who was the father of her only child, a son. On
the death of Glover, the child was taken by Glover's
mother and secreted so effectually that his mother did
not see him until he was thirty-four years old, and the
father of a family.

Her second husband was Daniel Patterson, who was
not only a rogue but also a fool — a flashy one, who
turned the head of a lone, lorn young widow, who
certainly was not infallible in judgment. In two years
the wife got a divorce from him, on the grounds of
cruelty and desertion, at Salem, Massachusetts. Her
third marital venture was Doctor Asa G. Eddy, a
practising physician — a man of much intelligence and
worth. From him Mrs. Eddy learned that the Science
of Medicine was not much of a science after all. Mrs.
Eddy used to say that her husband was her first convert ;
certain it is that Dr. Eddy gave up his practise to assist

333

MARY BAKER EDDY

his wife in putting before the world the unreaUty of
disease. That he did not fully grasp the idea is shown
by the fact that he died of pneumonia. This, however,
did not shake the faith of Mrs. Eddy in the doctrine
that sickness was an error of mortal mind. For a good
many years Mrs. Eddy drove the memory of her two
good husbands tandem, hitched by a hyphen, thus:
Mary Baker Glover-Eddy. Many a woman has joined
her own name to that of her husband, but what woman
ever before so honored the two men she had loved by
coupling their names! Getting married is a bad habit,
Mrs. Eddy would probably have said, but you have to
get married to find it out.

In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-nine, Mrs. Eddy organ-
ized the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,
and became its pastor. In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-
one, being then sixty years of age, she founded the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, in Boston. For
fifteen years she had been speaking in public, affirming
that health was our normal condition and that as a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he. From her forty-fifth
to her sixtieth year she was glad to speak for what was
offered, although I believe that even then she had dis-
carded the good old priestly plan of taking up a collec-
tion. The Metaphysical College was started to prepare
students for teaching Mrs. Eddy's doctrines.
The business ability of the woman was shown in thus
organizing and allowing no one to teach who was not
334

MARY BAKER EDDY

duly prepared. These students were obliged to pay a
good stiff tuition, which fact made them appreciative.
In turn they went out and taught; all students paid
the tidy sum of one hundred dollars for the lessons,
which fee was later cut to fifty. Salvation may be free,
but Christian Science costs money. The theological
genus piker, with his long, wrinkled, black coat, his
collar buttoned behind, and his high hat, has been
eliminated 53 33

Mrs. Eddy was manager of the best-methodized insti-
tution in the world, save only the Roman Catholic
Church and the Standard Oil Company. How many
million copies of **Science and Health" have been sold,
no man can say. What percentage of the money from
the lessons went to Mrs. Eddy, only an Armstrong
Committee could ascertain, and really it was nobody's
business but hers.

That Mrs. Eddy had some very skilful helpers goes
without saying. But here is the point — she selected
them, and reigned supreme. That the student who paid
fifty dollars got his money's worth, I have no doubt.
Not that he understood the lessons, but he received a
feeling of courage and a oneness with the whole which
caused health to flow through his veins and his heart
to beat with joy. The lesson might have been to him
a jumble of words, but he lived in hopes that he would
soon grow to a point where the lines were luminous 3S
In the meantime, all he knew was that whereas he was

335

MARY BAKER EDDY

once lame he could now walk. Even the most bigoted
and prejudiced now agree that the cures of Christian
Science are genuine. People who think they have trouble
have it, and it is the same with pain. Imagination is the
only sure-enough thing in the world. Mrs. Eddy's
doctrines abolish pain and therefore abolish poverty,
for poverty, in America at least, is a disease. Mrs.
Eddy's chief characteristics were:
First, Love of Beauty as manifest in bodily form, dress
and surroundings.

Second, A zeal for system, order and concentrated effort
on the particular business she undertakes.
Third, A dignity, courage, self-sufficiency and self-
respect that comes from a belief in her own divinity Si
Fourth, An economy of time, money, materials, energy
and emotion that wastes nothing, but which continually
conserves and accumulates.

Fifth, A liberality, when advisable, which is only possible
to those who also economize.

Sixth, Yankee shrewdness, great commonsense, all
flavored with a dash of mysticism and indifference to
physical scientific accuracy.

In other words. Christian Science is a woman's science
— she knows! And it is good because it is good — this is
a science sound enough for anybody — I guess so!
Christian Science is scientific, but not for the reasons
that its promoters maintain. Male Christian Scientists
do not growl and kick the cat.
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MARY BAKER EDDY

Women Christian Scientists do not nag. Christian
Scientists do not have either the grouch or the meddler's
itch. Among them there are no dolorosos, grumperinos
or beggars. They respect all other denominations, having
a serene faith that all will yet see the light — that is to
say, adopt their doctrines. The most radical among
old-school doctors could not deny that Mrs. Eddy's
own life was conducted on absolutely scientific lines.
She never answered the telephone, never fussed nor
fumed 53 58

She hired big, safe people and paid them a big wage.
She gave her coachman fifty dollars a week, and her
cook in proportion, and thus secured people who gave
her peace. She went to bed with the birds and awoke
with the dawn. At seven o'clock she was at her desk,
dictating answers to the very few letters her secretary
deemed it advisable she should see. She had breakfast
at nine o'clock — ate anything she liked, taking her time
and fletcherizing. After breakfast she worked UF>on her
manuscripts until it was time for the daily ride.
At four o'clock she dined — two meals a day being the
rule. If, however, she cared to dissipate a little and eat
three meals a day, she was not afraid to do so.
She knew her horses and cows and sheep by name, and
gave requests as to their care, holding that the laws
of mind obtain as to dumb animals the same as man.
Dogs she did not care for, and if she ever had an aversion
it would have been cats. Her servants she called ** My

337

MARY BAKER EDDY

helpers.** Christian Scientists very naturally believe in
the equality of the sexes. When girl babies are born to
them they bless God, just the same as when boy babies
are born. In truth they bless God for everything, for
to them all is beautiful and all is good. Paid preachers
they do not have; they do not believe in priests or cer-
tain men who are nearer to God than others. All have
access to Eternal Truth, and thus is the ecclesiastic
excluded. To eliminate the theological middleman is
well, and as for the Church itself, surely Mrs. Eddy
eliminated it also; for she never entered a church, or
at least not more than once a year, and then it was only
in deference to the architect. A Church! Is it necessary?
For herself Mrs. Eddy said. No.

But as for others, she said. Yes, a church is good for
those who need it. Mrs. Eddy was the most successful
author in the world, or, indeed, that the world has ever
seen. No other writer ever made so much money as she,
none is more devoutly read.

Shakespeare, with his fortune of a quarter of a million
dollars, fades into comparative failure; and Arthur
Brisbane, with his salary of seventy-five thousand a
year, is an office-boy compared with this regal woman,
who gave fifty thousand dollars a year for good roads.

338

MARY BAKER EDDY

HE valuable truths and distinguishing features
of Christian Science are not to be found in
Mrs. Eddy*s books, but in Mrs. Eddy's life.
She was a much bigger woman than she was
a writer. Emerson says that every great institution is
the lengthened shadow of a single man. Every great
business enterprise has a soul — one man's spirit ani-
mates, pervades and tints the whole. You can go into
any hotel or store, and behold! the nature or character
of the owner or manager is everywhere proclaimed 3S
You do not have to see the man, and the bigger the
institution the less need is there for the man to show
himself. His work proclaims him, just as a farmer's
livestock all moo, whinny and squeal his virtues —
or lack of them. As a boy of ten I learned to know all
of our neighbors by their horses. The horses of a drunk-
ard, blanketless, hungry, shivering, outside of the village
tavern, do they not proclaim the poor, despised owner
within? 53 S&

You can walk through the passenger-coaches of a train
made up at a terminal and read the character unmis-
takably of the general passenger-agent. The soul of
John Wesley ran through Methodism and made it
what it was. The Lutheranism of Luther yet lives;
Calvinism the same; and the soul of John Knox still
goes marching on, carrying the Presbyterian banner.
^ Every religion partakes of the nature of its founder,
until this religion is mixed with that of another and

339

MARY BAKER EDDY

its character lost, as happened to the religion of Christ
when it was launched by Paul suid was finally fused
with Paganism by the Roman Emperor, Constantine.
fl Christian Science is as yet the lengthened shadow
of Mary Baker Eddy. Her own immediate, personal
pupils are still teaching, and her life and characteristics
impressed upon them are given out to each and all.
Every phase of life is solved by answering the question,
** What would Mrs. Eddy do? ** Mrs. Eddy's ideas
about dress, housekeeping, business, food, health, the
management of servants, the care of children — all are
blended into a composite, and this composite is the
Christian Scientist as we see and know him.
The fact that Mrs. Eddy was methodical, industrious,
economical, persevering, courageous, hopeful, helpful,
neat in her attire and smiling, makes all Christian
Scientists exactly so. She did not play cards and indulge
in the manifold silliness of so-called good society, and
neither do they. Indeed, that one thing which has been
referred to as ** the plaster-of -Paris smile,** the one
feature in Christian Science to which many good people
object, is the direct legacy of Mrs. Eddy to her pupils.
** Science and Health ** says nothing about it; no edict
has been put forth recommending it; but all good
Christian Scientists take it on — the smile that refuses
to vacate the premises. And to some it is certainly very
becoming. Mrs. Eddy's self-reliant, silent, smiling per-
sonality has given the key to conduct for the hundreds
3^

MARY BAKER EDDY

of thousands of people who love her and revere her
memory S& 58

Mrs. Eddy was a rare good listener. She did not argue.
Once upon a time, indeed, she was guilty of waving
the red flag of wordy warfare; but the passing of the
years brought her wisdom, and then her only answer
to impatience was the quiet smile. As for eating, her
table always had enough, but it stopped short of .surfeit;
the service was dainty, and all these things are now seen
in the homes of Christian Scientists. Always in the home
of a good Christian Scientist the bathroom is as complete
as the library, and both are models of good housekeep-
ing, seemingly always in order for the inspection com-
mittee 58 3i

Mrs. Eddy did not say much about hot water, soap
and clean towels; but the idea, regardless of the non-
existence of matter, is fixed in the consciousness of every
Christian Scientist that absolute bodily cleanliness,
fresh linen and fresh air are not only next to godliness,
but elements of it. All of which you could never work
out of ** Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures "
in a lifetime of study, any more than you could mine and
smelt the Westminster Catechism out of the Bible Si
The vital truths of right living come to us as a precious
heritage from the character of this great woman. She,
herself, perhaps may not have known this; but before
she wrote her book and formulated her religion, she
lived her life. Her book was an endeavor to explain her

341

MARY BAKER EDDY

life, and as her life grew better, stronger and more
refined, she changed her book. Her book reacted on her
life, and the person who got the most good out of ** Sci-
ence and Health ** was Mary Baker Eddy herself S&
** Science and Health ** is mystical and beautifully
human. The author's oar often fails to catch the water.
For instance, she tries to show that animal magnetism,
spiritualism, mental science, theosophy, agnosticism,
pantheism and infidelity are all bad things and opposed
to the science of ** true being.*'

This statement presupposes that animal magnetism,
infidelity, theosophy and agnosticism are specific
entities or things, wheresis they are only labels that
are clapped quite indiscriminately on empty casks
or full ones; and the contents of the casks may be
sea- water or wine, and are really unknown to both
mortal and divine mind, whatever these things are.
Theosophists like Annie Besant, Spiritualists like Alfred
Russel Wallace, Agnostics like Huxley and IngersoU,
are very noble and beautiful people. They are good
neighbors and useful citizens.

** Science and Health '* is an attempt to catch and
hold in words the secrets of an active, honest, healthful,
seeking, restless, earnest life, and as such is more or less
of a failure 53 5S

Our actions are right, but our reasons seldom are 38
Christian Science as a plan of life, embodying the great
yet simple virtues, is beautiful. ** Science and Health
342

MARY BAKER EDDY

with Key to the Scriptures ** does not explain the
Scriptures. The book, as an attempt to explain and
crystallize truth, is a failure. It ranks with that great
mass of literature, written and copied at such vast
pains and expense, bearing the high-sounding title,
** Writings of the Saints/*

343

MARY BAKER EDDY

LL publishers are familiar with inspired manu-
scripts. Such work always has* one thing in
common — unintelligibility. Good literature is
lucid to the average mind. In fact, that is
its distinguishing feature. We understand what the
man means. No able writer uses the same word over
and over with varying sense. Alfred Henry Lewis and
William Marion Reedy use the mortal mind, and their
work is understandable. You can sit in judgment on
their conclusions and weigh, sift and decide for yourself.
They make an appeal to your intellect.
But you can not sit in judgment on ** Science and
Health,** because its language is not the language we
use in our common, every-day intercourse with one
another. It speaks of Christ as a person, a principle,
a spirit, a motive; as ** Truth **; as one who was born
of one parent or no parents; who lived, died, or never
lived, never was born, and can not die.
Metaphysics is an attempt to explain a thing and
thereby evade the trouble of understanding it. You
throw the burden of proof on the other fellow — ^and
make him believe he does not comprehend because he
is too stupid. This is not fair!

Language is simply an agreement between people that
certain vocal sounds, or written symbols, shall stand
for certain ideas, thoughts or things. Inspired writers
string intelligent words together in an unintelligent
manner, and thereby give the reader an opportunity
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MARY BAKER EDDY

to read anything into them that his preconceived
thoughts may dictate. Metaphysical gibberish is a
rudimentary survival of the practise of reading to
the people in a dead language. The doctors continue
the plan by writing prescriptions in Latin.
I once worked in a studio where the boys scraped their
palette-knives on a convenient board. One day we took
the board out and had it framed under glass, with a
double, deep-shadow box. We gave it the best place
in the studio and labeled it, ** A Sunset at Sea — an
Impression in Monochrome.*

The picture attracted much attention and great admir-
ation from certain symbolists. It also created so much
controversy that we were obliged to take it down in
the interests of amity.

To assume that God inspired the Scriptures, and did
the work so ill that, after more than two thousand
years, it was necessary to inspire another person to
make a ** Key ** to them, is hardly worthy of our serious
attention. If God, being all-wise, all-powerful and all-
loving, turns author, why does He produce work so
muddy that it requires a ** Key'*?
Individuals may use a code that requires a ** Key,**
because they wish to keep their matter secret from
others. There may be for them a penalty on truth,
but why Deity should write in a secret language, and
then wait two thousand years before making the matter
plain, and then to one single woman in Boston, is

345

MARY BAKER EDDY

incomprehensible. What the world wants now is a
Key to '* Science and Health." In reading a book, the
question that interests us is not, ** Is it inspired ? *'
but, ** Is it true ? '*

Mrs. Eddy's ranks are recruited almost entirely from
Orthodox Christianity. On page six hundred eight of
** Science and Health,*' pocket edition of Nineteen
Hundred Six, a lawyer gives testimony to the good he
has gotten from Christian Science, and explains that
he has long been a member of the Episcopal Church.
He is delighted to know that he has not had to relin-
quish any of his old faith, but has simply kept the old
and added to it the new.

This explains, in great degree, the popularity of Chris-
tian Science. People cling to the religious superstitions
into which they were born. Mrs. Eddy's recruits were
not from theosophy, spiritualism, agnosticism, uni-
tarianism, universalism or infidelity. You can't give
a freethinker a book with a statement of what he must
find in it 53 33

He has acquired the habit of thinking for himself 53
Mrs. Eddy had no faith in Darwin, Spencer or Haeckel.
She quoted Moses, Jesus and Paul to disprove the evo-
lutionists, sat back and smiled content, innocently
unaware that citations from Scriptures are in no sense
proof to free minds. All of the Bible she wished to
waive, she did. The cruelty and bestiality of Jehovah
were nothing to her. Her ** Key " does not unlock the
346

MARY BAKER EDDY

secrets of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, nor does it shed
light on the doctrines of eternal punishment, the vicari-
ous atonement, or the efficacy of baptism as a saving
ordinance 33 53

Explanations about mortal mind, divine mind and
human mind, citing specific errors of the human mind,
with a calm codicil to the effect that the human mind
has no existence, are not what you might call illuminat-
ing literature. The stuff is simply " inspired/' Mrs.
Eddy was very wise in not allowing her ** readers *'
or followers to sermonize or explain her writings. These
writings are simply to be read. And so the hearers sit
steeped in mist and wrapped in placidity, returning to
their work rested and refreshed, without being influ-
enced in any way, save by the soothing calm of forceful
fog and mental vacuity.

The rest and relief from all thought is good. The related
experiences of Christian Scientists are the things that
convince and carry weight, not ** Science and Health.'*
** Science and Health '* was made to sell. It was not
given to you to be understood : it was to be bought and
believed. If you doubt any portion of it, at once you
are told that this is the work of your mortal mind,
which is filled with error. Good Christian Scientists
do not try to understand ** Science and Health '* —
they just accept and believe it. ** It is inspired,** they
say, ** so it must be true — you will know when you
are worthy to know.**

347

MARY BAKER EDDY

And so we see our old friend Intellectual Tyranny come
back in another form, not with cowl and cape, but
tricked out with feminine finery and jewelry and gems
that lure and dazzle. There is one thing quite as valuable
as health, and that is intellectual integrity. To say,
** Oh, * Science and Health ' is certainly inspired —
just see how old Mrs. Johnson was cured of the rheu-
matism! *' is not reasoning.

And it has given the scoffers excuse for calling it
woman's logic. Such reasoning is on the plane of,
** Why, Jesus must have been the only begotten son
of God, born of a virgin, for if you don't believe it,
just see the hospitals, orphan asylums and homes for
the aged that Christianity has built!*' Mrs. Johnson
was surely cured of the rheumatism all right, but that
does not prove that Mrs. Eddy is correct in her claim
that Eve was made from Adam's rib; that agamogenesis
is a fact in Nature; that to till the soil will not always
be necessary; that human life in these bodies will have
no end; and that an absent person can poison your
health and happiness through malicious animal magnet-
ism; or that a good person can give you absent treat-
ment and cure your indigestion.

I agree with Mrs. Eddy as to the necessity of eliminating
a medical fetish, but 1 disagree with her about religiously
preserving a theological one. I have read ** Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures " for twenty years,
and I have also read the Scriptures for a much longer
348

MARY BAKER EDDY

period. Also, I have lived in the same house for many
months with very intelligent Christian Scientists 58
And after mature consideration I regard both the
Scriptures and ** Science and Health *' as largely made
up of the errors of mortal mind. My intuitions are just
as valuable to me as Mrs. Eddy's were to her.
My conscience is quite as sacred to me as hers was to
her. And in being an agnostic I object to being classed
as blind, stubborn, wilful, malicious and degenerate.
^We should honor our Creator by cleaving to the
things that seem to us to be true, and not abandon
the rudder of our minds to any man or any woman,
be they living or dead. Let us not be dishonest with
ourselves, even to rid us of our physical diseases. As
for health, I have all of it that Christian Science ever
gave or can give. I have no ** testimony " of healing
to relate, for I have never been sick an hour. And I
think I know how I have kept well. I make no secret
of it. It is all very simple — nothing miraculous.
My knowledge of how to keep well is not inspired
knowledge, save as all men are inspired who study
and know the Laws of Nature. Health, after all, is
largely a matter of habit.

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MARY BAKER EDDY

ACK of the reading-desks, in the ** Mother
Church," at Boston, are quotations from
Paul and Mrs. Eddy, side by side. But the
quotation from Paul, which is behind the
desk of the woman reader, is not this; ** Let women
keep silence in the churches.**

Mrs. Eddy believed the Scriptures are all true, word
for word. Yet when she quoted Paul she picked the
thing she wanted and avoided all that did not apply
to her case. Personally, I like the plan. I do it myself.
But I do not believe the Scriptures are inspired by an
all-wise Deity. So far as I know, all books were written
by men, and very often by faulty, human men at that.
Mrs. Eddy's ** Key** does not unlock anything; and
she did not try to unlock any passages except the pas-
sages that seemingly had a bearing on her belief. That
is, Mrs. Eddy believed things first, and then skirmished
for proof. This is a very old plan. Says Shakespeare:
** In religion what damned error but some somber brow
will bless it and approve it with a text, hiding the
grossness thereof with fair ornament.** Let no one read
*' Science and Health ** in the hope of finding in it
simple and sensible statements concerning life and its
duties. They are not there.

I append a few quotations, and in mentioning the page
I refer to the pocket or ** Oxford ** edition of Nineteen
Hundred Six. On page one hundred eighty-three of
** Science and Health ** I find, ** The Scriptures inform
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MARY BAKER EDDY

us that sin, or error, first caused the condemnation
of man to till the ground, and indicate that obedience
to God will remove this necessity."
Mrs. Exldy evidently believed that work is a punish-
ment, and that the day will come when God will remove
the necessity of farming and making garden. Can a sane
person reply to such lack of logic?
On page five hundred forty-seven is this: ** If one of
the statements in this book is true, every one must be
true, for not one departs from its system and rule. You
can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of
healing, and so ascertain if the author has given you
the correct interpretation of Scripture.'*
This is evidently inspired by Paul's quibble, ** If the
dead rise not from the grave, then is our religion vain.'*
Lincoln once referred to this kind of reasoning by
saying, ** I object to the assumption that my ambition
is to have my son marry a negress, simply because I
am struggling for emancipation.** Mrs. Eddy may heal
you, but that does not prove that her interpretation
of Scripture is true. Because this happens, that does
not necessarily follow. Neither, because a thing precedes
a thing or goes with a thing, is the thing the cause of
the thing. On page five hundred fifty-three is this:
** Adam was created before Eve. Herein it is seen
that the maternal egg never brought forth Adam.
Eve was formed from Adam*s rib, not from a fetal

ovum."

351

MARY BAKER EDDY

In reading things like this in ** Science and Health,"
let us not be too severe on Mrs. Eddy, but just bear
in mind that such silly superstitions and barbaric
folklore are yet officially believed by all orthodox
clergymen and members of orthodox churches. You
can accept a belief in Adam's fall and the vicarious
atonement and still make money and have good health.
^ Page one hundred two: ** The mild forms of animal
magnetism are disappearing, and its aggressive features
are coming to the front. The looms of crime, hidden in
the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every hour
weaving webs more complicated and subtle. So secret
are its present methods that they ensnare the age into
indolence, and produce the very apathy on this subject
which the criminal desires.**

This passage reveals the one actually dangerous thing
in Christian Science — the fallacy that one mind can
weave a web that will work the undoing of another.
This is the basis of a belief in witchcraft, and justifies
the hangings at Salem. On page one hundred three I
find this : ** As used in Christian Science, animal magnet-
ism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal
mind 53 5S

It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and both
evil and good ; that evil is as real as goodness, and more
powerful. This belief has not one quality of truth or
good. It is either ignorant or malicious. The malicious
form of animal magnetism ultimates in moral idiocy.
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MARY BAKER EDDY

The truths of immortal mind sustain man; and they
annihilate the fables and mortal mind, whose flimsy
and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe their
own wings and fall into dust. In reality there is no
mortal mind, and consequently no transference of
mortal thought and will-power.*' Page five hundred
two: ** Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the
history of the untrue image of God, named a sinful
mortal. This deflection of being, rightly viewed, serves
the spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first
chapter of Genesis. When the crude forms of human
thought take on higher symbols and significations,
the scientifically Christian views of the universe will
app)ear, illuminating time with the glory of eternity."
^ 1 append these two passages simply as samples of
** inspired literature."

Any one who tries to understand such printed matter
is headed for Bloomingdale. You must leave it alone
absolutely or else accept it and read it with your mental
eyes closed, mumbling it with your lips, and let your
mind roam like a priest reading his breviary in the
smoking-apartment of a Pullman car. The question
then arises, ** Was Mrs. Eddy sincere in putting forth
such writings? **

And the answer is, she was most certainly sincere, and
she was certainly sane. She was an honest woman. But
she was not a clear or logical thinker, except on matters
of finance and business, and consequently she did not

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MARY BAKER EDDY

give forth a clear expression when she essayed phi-
losophy. In order to write lucidly you must think
lucidly. Mrs. Eddy had no sense of literary values.
She was absolutely devoid of humor, and humor is
only the ability to detect a little thing from a big one
— to perceive a wrong adjustment from a right one 33
Style in literature is taste. But the lack of style, taste
and humor is general in mankind. The world has pro-
duced only a few great thinkers, and one of them was
Darwin, a name which Mrs. Eddy mentioned in ** Sci-
ence and Health " with reproach. Great writers are
even more rare than great thinkers, because to write
one must have the ability not only to think clearly,
but the knack or technical skill to use the right word,
the luminous word, and so arrange, paragraph and
punctuate them that your meaning will be clear to
average minds. To say that Mrs. Eddy was not a
thinker nor a writer, is not an indictment of the woman,
although it may be a reflection on the mental processes
of the people who think she was.
To say that there are two million people reading Mrs.
Eddy, also proves nothing, since numbers are no vin-
dication. Over a hundred million people have kissed
the big toe of Saint Peter in Rome.
And surely the Roman Catholic Church contains a
vast number of highly educated people. The things
you do not know, you do not know. And Mrs. Eddy,
knowing nothing of literary style, knew nothing of

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MARY BAKER EDDY

literary art. Her prose and her poetry are worse than
ordinary. All inspirational poetry I ever read is rot,
and all inspired paintings I ever saw are daubs. Mrs.
Eddy should not be blamed for her limitations 5S 5S
Many people who are great in certain lines labor under
the hallucination that they are also great in others.
Matthew Arnold was a great writer, and he also thought
he was a great orator.

But when he spoke, his words simply fell over the
footlights into the orchestra and died there. He could
not reach the front row. Most comedians want to play
Hamlet, and all of us have heard girls attempt to sing
who thought they could sing, and who were encouraged
in the hallucination by their immediate kinsfolk 5S
Mrs. Eddy thought she could write, and unfortunately
she was corroborated in her error by the applause of
people who, not being able to read her book, kindly
attributed the inability to their own limitations and
not to hers, being prompted in this by the suggestion
oft repeated by Mrs. Eddy, herself. The resemblance
of Mrs. Eddy*s thought to that of Jesus was never
noticed until Mrs. Eddy first explained the matter.
Mrs. Eddy was by no means insane. Swedenborg was
a civil engineer and a mathematician. He wrote forty
books that are nearly as opaque as ** Science and
Health.** If you write stupidly enough, some one will
surely throw up his cap and cry ** Great! '* And others
will follow the example and take up the shout, because

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MARY BAKER EDDY

It is much easier, as Doctor Johnson affirmed, to praise
a book than to read and understand it. The custom
of reading to a congregation in a dead or foreign lan-
guage, which the Hsteners do not understand, has
never caused any general protest from the listeners.
The scoffers are the only ones who have ever noticed
the incongruity, and they do not count, since they
probably would not attend, anyway.
Next to reading from a book written in the dead
language, is to read from a book that is unintelligible.
To listen to such makes no tax upon the intellect, and
with the right accessories is soporific, restful, pleasing
and to be commended. If it does not supply an idea,
it at least imparts a feeling. Mrs. Eddy's success in
literature arose from the extreme muddiness of her
thinking and her opacity in expression.
If she had written fairly well, her mediocrity would
have been apparent to every one; but writing abso-
lutely without rhyme or reason, we bow before her
supreme assurance. The strongest element in men is
inertia — we agree rather than fight about it. We want
health — and health is what Mrs. Eddy gives to us —
therefore, ** Science and Health with Key to the Scrip-
tures *' is the greatest book in the whole world. Sancta
simplicitas! Why not, indeed!

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MARY BAKER EDDY

EOPLE turn to Mrs. Eddy's book for relief
just exactly as they formerly went to the
doctor for the same reason. ^ In addition
to bodily health, Mrs. Eddy gives joy, hope,
worldly success; and even superior minds, seeing these
practical results of Christian Science, move in the line
of least resistance and are quite willing to accept the
book, not troubled at all about its medieval reasoning.
In Ungania is a very great merchant who, not content
with having the biggest store in the Kingdom, aspires
to the biggest University. The fact that the higher
criticism is to him only a trivial matter, and really
unworthy of the serious attention of a busy man,
simply reveals human limitation.

The specialist is created at a terrific cost, and that
a person will be practical, shrewd, diplomatic and wise
in managing the buying public and an army of employ-
ees, and yet know and love Walt Whitman, is too much
to expect. This keen and successful merchant, an abso-
lute tyrant in certain ways, has his soft side and many
pleasant qualities. Why any one should ever question
the literal truth of the Bible is beyond his comprehen-
sion 53 38

He is convinced that ** Leaves of Grass " is an obscene
book, never having read it ; yet he knows nothing about
the third, eleventh and thirteenth chapters of Second
Samuel, having read the Book all his life. He has a
pitying, patronizing smile for any one who suggests
that David was a very faulty man, and that possibly

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MARY BAKER EDDY

Solomon was not the wisest person that ever lived.
*' What difference does it make, anyway? ** he testily
asks. If you work for him you have to agree with him,
or else be very silent as to what you actually believe.
We often find an avowed and reiterated love for Jesus,
the non-resistant, going hand in hand with a passion
for war, a miser's greed, a lust for power and a thirst
for revenge.

There may be a prating about righteousness while the
hand of the man is feeling for his sword-hilt, and his
eye is locating your jugular. The Ten Commandments
are all rescinded in war time. The New York ** Evening
Post ** noted the peculiar fact that nine out of ten of
the delegates at The Hague International Peace Con-
ference were theological heretics. As a rule. Orthodox
Christians stand for war, and also for capital punish-
ment. How do we explain these inconsistencies? 53 58
We do not try to: they are simply facts in the partial
development of the race. Why millionaires should pat-
ronize the memory of Jesus is something no one can
understand, save that things work by antithesis. Mrs.
Eddy was of the same shrewd, practical type as the
merchant prince just mentioned. She was the greatest
woman-general of her day and generation. She possessed
all the qualities that go to make successful leadership.
^ She was self-reliant, proud, arrogant, implacable in
temper, rapid in decision, unbending, shrewd, diplo-
matic— and a good hater.
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MARY BAKER EDDY

At times she dismissed her critics with simply a look.
No man could dictate to her, and few dared make sug-
gestions in her presence. To move her, the matter
had to be brought to her attention in a way that led her
to believe that she had discovered it herself. And of
course all the credit went to her. In all Christian Science
churches are various selections from her writings, and
beneath every one is her name. ** Thou shalt have no
other gods before me! " is the one controlling edict
breathed forth by her life and words. One of her orders
was that whenever one of her hymns was announced,
always and forever it must be stated that it was written
by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. Always and forever, the
** student ** giving testimony refers, in terms of lavish
praise and fulsome adulation, to " Our Blessed Teacher,
Guide and Exemplar, Mary Baker Eddy.** God Al-
mighty and Jesus occupy secondary positions in all
Christian Science meetings.

Mrs. Eddy is mentioned five times to where they are
once. And I would not criticize this if Mrs. Eddy had
but regarded Jesus as simply a great man in history
and ** God ** as an abstract term referring to the
Supreme Intelligence in Nature. But to her, God
and Jesus were persons who dictated books, and very
frequently she was careful to explain that her method
of healing was exactly the same as that practised
by Jesus. Side by side with His words are hers.
Passages from the Bible are read alternately with

359

MARY BAKER EDDY

passages from ** Science and Health.** If both were
regarded as mere literature, this would be pardonable,
but when we are told that both are ** sacred '* writ,
and ** damned be he who dares deny or doubt,** we
are simply lost in admiration for the supreme egotism
of the lady. To get mad about it were vain — let us all
smile. Surely the imagination that can trace points of
resemblance between Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy and
Jesus, the lowly peasant of Nazareth, is admirable.
Jesus was a communist in principle, having nothing,
giving everything. He carried neither scrip nor purse.
He wrote nothing. His indifference to place, pelf and
power is His distinguishing characteristic. Mrs. Eddy's
love of power was the leading motive of her life; her
ability to bargain was beautiful ; her resorts to law and
the subtleties of legal aid were all strictly modern;
and the way she tied up the title to her writings by
lead-pipe-cinched copyrights reveals the true instincts
of Connecticut 53 33

This jealousy of her rights and the safeguarding of
her interests were among the emphatic features of her
life, and set her apart as the antithesis of Jesus 53 53
There is one character in history, however, to whom
Mrs. Eddy bore a close resemblance — and that is Julius
Caesar, who was educated for the priesthood, became a
priest, and was Pope of Rome before he ventured into
fighting and politics as a business. Mrs. Eddy*s faith
in herself, her ability to decide, her quick intuitions*

360

MARY BAKER EDDY

the method and simplicity of her life, her passion for
power, her pleasure in authorship — all these were the
traits which exalted the name and fame of Caesar 58
The inventor of the calendar ordered that it should
be known as the ** Julian Calendar,*' and it is so called,
even unto this day. Once Carlyle sat smoking with
Milburn, the blind preacher. They had been discussing
the historicity of Jesus. Then they sat smoking in
silence. Finally, Tammas the Techy knocked the ashes
out of his long clay t. d. and muttered, half to himself
and half to Milburn, ** Ah, a great mon, a great mon
— but he had his limitations! ** The same remark can
truthfully be applied to Mrs. Eddy. And about the
only point that Jesus and Mrs. Eddy have in common
is this matter mentioned by Carlyle.
The superior shrewdness and the keen business instinct
of Mrs. Eddy are seen in the use of the words ** Chris-
tian *' and ** Science." The sub-title, ** With Key to
the Scriptures," is particularly alluring. And the use
of the Oxford binding was the crowning stroke of com-
mercial insight. Surely Mrs. Eddy must command our
profound respect. She was undoubtedly a very great
business genius, to say the very least.

361

MARY BAKER EDDY

HEN John Henry Newman became a Catholic,
he gave as a reason for his decision that he
had found no place in literature or art to rest
his head. His reward for not finding a place
in literature or art for his head was the red hat.
Let the followers of Mrs. Eddy take comfort in that
their great teacher had plenty of high precedent for
believing that Adam was created by fiat, and Eve was
made from his rib, all the fiat being used; that Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still and it obeyed, even
when the order should have been given to the earth;
that Lazarus was raised from the dead after his body
had become putrid; that witchcraft is a fact in Nature;
and that children can be born with the aid of one parent
a little better than in the old-fashioned way — ^parthe-
nogenesis, I think they call it.

These inconsistencies of absolute absurdity, existing
side by side with great competence and sanity, are to
be found everyhere in history.

Mrs. Eddy excited the envy of the medical world in her
demonstration that good health and happiness are the
sure results of getting rid of the doctor habit; but they
got even with her when she said that virgin motherhood
would yet become the rule, and tilling of the soil would
cease to be a necessity.

Saint Augustine thought, as did most of the early
Churchmen, that to do evil that good might follow was
not only justifiable, but highly meritorious. So they
362

MARY BAKER EDDY

preached hagiology to scare people into the narrow path
of rectitude.

Chapman, Alexander, Torrey, Billy Sunday and most
other professional evangelists believe in and practise
the same doctrine.

The literary conscience was a thing known in Greece,
but only recently, say within two hundred years, has it
been again manifest, and as yet it is rare. It consists in
the scorn and absolute refusal to write a line except
that which stands for truth.

The artistic conscience that refuses to paint for hire or
model on order is the same. Wagner, Millet, Rembrandt,
William Morris and Ruskin are examples of men who
were incapable of anything but their highest and best
creative work, and refused to truckle to the mercenary
horde. Such men may be without conscience in a busi-
ness way. And a person may be absolutely moral in all
his acts of life, except in writing and talking, and here
he may be slipshod and uncertain.

Mrs. Eddy was beautifully lacking in the literary con-
science, just as much so as was Gladstone when he
attempted to reply to Ingersoll in **The North American
Review,*' and resorted to sophistry and evasion in lieu
of logic. Absolute truth to Gladstone was a matter of
indifference — expediency was his shibboleth. Truth to
Mrs. Eddy was also a secondary matter; the only things
that really mattered were Health and Success. Health
and Success are undoubtedly great things and well

363

MARY BAKER EDDY

worthy of possession, but I wish to secure them only
through the expression of truth. If you gag my tongue,
chain my pen and cry, ** Believe and you will have
Health,** I would say, ** Give me liberty or give me
death! ** Christian Scientists ask you to buy Mrs.
Eddy's book, '' Science and Health.**
When the volume is handed you, you are promised
health and success if you believe its every word; and
if you don*t, you are threatened with ** moral idiocy.'*
^ It is the old promise of Paradise and the threat of
Hell in a new guise. As for me, I decline the book.

364

MARY BAKER EDDY

TEPHEN GIRARD was a great merchant
who had a great love of truth; but if he had
been in a retail business, his zeal for truth
might have been slightly modified.
As a rule, the world of humanity can be divided into
two parts : the practical men and the searchers for truth.^
Usually the latter have nothing to lose but their head.
Spinoza, Galileo, Bruno, Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman,
Henry Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, are the pure type.
Then come Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emer-
son, crowded out of their pulpits, scorned by their Alma
Mater, pitied by the public — yet holding true to their
course 53 53

And lo ! they grew rich ; whereas, if they had stuck close
to the shore and safety, they would have been drowned
in the shallows of oblivion.

On the other hand, we find in, say, the directorate of
the Standard Oil Company, many men who are zealous
members of the orthodox churches, giving large sums
in support of the '* gospel,'* and taking an active interest
in its promulgation. All of them say, with the late Mr.
Morgan, ** My mother's religion is good enough for
me." So here we get practical shrewdness combined
with minds that, so far as abstract truth is concerned,
are simply prairie-dog towns.

These men belong to a type that will cling to error as
long as it is soft, easy and popular. Most certainly these
men are not fools — they are highly competent and useful

365

MARY BAKER EDDY

in their way. But as for superstition, they find it sooth-
ing; it saves the trouble of thinking, and all their
energies are needed in business.

Religion, to them, is a social diversion, with a chance
of salvation on the side. Inertia does not grip them
when it comes to commerce — but in religion it does.
Lincoln once said that there was just one thing, and
only one thing, that God Almighty could not under-
stand: and that was the workings of the mind of an
intelligent American juror.

Herbert Spencer says that Sir Isaac Newton was one
of the six best educated men the world has seen. He
was the first man to resolve light into its constituent
elements. Voltaire says that when Newton discovered
the Law of Gravitation he excited the envy of the scien-
tific world.

'* But,** adds Voltaire, ** when he wrote a book on the
Bible prophecies, the men of science got even with him."
Sir Isaac Newton defended the literal inspiration of the
Scriptures and was a consistent member of the Church
of England. Doctor Johnson was unhappy all day if he
did n't touch every tenth picket of the fence with his
cane as he walked downtown.

Blackstone, the great legal commentator, believed in
witchcraft, and bolstered his belief by citing the Scrip-
tural text, '* Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ** —
thus proving Moses a party to the superstition. Sir
Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of England, did the same.
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MARY BAKER EDDY

Gladstone was a great statesman, and yet he believed
in the Mosaic account of Creation, just as did Mary
Baker Eddy.

John Adams was a rebel from political slavery, but lived
and died a worthy Churchman, subsisting on canned
theology — and canned in England, at that.
Franklin and Jefferson were rebels from both political
and theological despotism, but looked leniently on
leeches and apothecaries. Herbert Spencer had a free
mind as regards religion, politics, economics and sociol-
ogy; yet he was a bachelor, lived in the city, belonged
to a club, played billiards and smoked cigars. Physical
health was out of his reach, and with all his vast knowl-
edge, he never knew why. All through history we find
violence and gentleness, ignorance and wisdom, folly
and shrewdness side by side in the same person.
The one common thing in humanity is inconsistency.
To account for it were vain. We know only that it is.

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MARY BAKER EDDY

HE very boldness of Mrs. Eddy's claims
created an impetus that carried conviction.
^The woman certainly believed in herself,
^ and she also believed in the Power, of which
she was a necessary part, that works for righteousness.
She repudiated the supernatural, not by denying
** miracles,*' but by holding that the so-called miracles
of the Bible really occurred and were perfectly natural —
all according to Natural Law, which is the Divine Law.
^And the explanation of this Divine Law was her
particular business. Thus did she win to her side those
who were too timid in constitution to forsake forms
and ceremonies and stand alone on the broad ground
of Rationalism.

Christian Science is not a religion of fight, stress and
struggle. Is n*t it better to relax and rest and allow
Divinity to flow through us, than to sit on a sharp rail
and call the passer-by names in falsetto? May Irwin's
motto, ** Don't Argufy," is n't so bad as a working
maxim, after all.

All Christian denominations are very much alike. Their
differences are microscopic, and recognized only by
those who are immersed in them. Martin Luther only
softened the expression of the Roman Catholic Church
— he did not change its essence.

Benjamin Franklin declared that he could not tell the
difference between a Catholic and an Episcopalian. But
Christian Science is a complete departure from all other
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MARY BAKER EDDY

denominations, and while professing to be Christian,
is really something else, or if it is Christian, then
orthodoxy is not.

Christian Science strikes right at the root of orthodoxy,
since it divides the power of Jesus with Mary Baker
Eddy and affirms that Jesus was not ** The Savior/*
but A Savior.

This is the position of Thomas Paine, and all other good
radicals. Christian Science places Mrs. Eddy's work
right alongside of the Bible. No denomination has ever
put out a volume stating that the book was required in
order to make the Bible intelligible. No denomination
has ever put forth a person as the equal of Jesus. This
has only been done by unbelievers, atheists and free-
thinkers si 58

Christianity is at last attacked in its own house and by
its own household. It is thoroughly understood and
admitted everywhere that there are two kinds of Christi-
anity. One is the kind taught by the Nazarene ; and the
other is the institutional variety, made up of denom-
inations which hold millions upon millions of dollars'
worth of prop)erty without taxation, and parade their
ritual with rich and costly millinery.
The one was lived by a Man who had not where to lay
His head; and the other is an acquirement taken over
from pagan Rome, and continued largely in its pagan
form even unto this day. Christian Science is neither
one nor the other, and the obvious pleasantry that it is

369

MARY BAKER EDDY

neither Christian nor scientific is a jest in earnest.
Christian Science is a modern adaptation of all that is
best in the simplicity and asceticism of Jesus, the
commonsense philosophy of Benjamin Franklin, the
mysticism of Swedenborg, and the bold pronunciamento
of Robert IngersoU. It is a religion of affirmation with
a denial-of-matter attachment.

It is a religion of this world. Jesus was a Man of Sor-
rows but Mary Baker Eddy was a Daughter of Joy 3S
And as the universal good sense of mankind holds that
the best preparation for a life to come, if there is one,
is to make the best of this, Christian Science is meeting
with a fast-growing popular acceptance.
The decline of the old orthodoxy is owing to its clinging
to the fallacy that the world's work is base, and Nature
is a trickster luring us to our doom. Mrs. Eddy reconciled
the old idea with the new and made it mentally palata-
ble. And this is the reason why Christian Science is
going to sweep the earth and in twenty years will have
but one competitor, the Roman Catholic faith.
Orthodoxy, blind, blundering, stubborn, senile, is tot-
tering— the undertaker is at the door. Indeed, the old
idea of our orthodox friends that they were preparing
to die, was literally true.

The undertaker's name and business address attached
to the front of many a city church is a sign too subtle
to overlook. Not only wets the undertaker a partner of
the priest, but he is now foreclosing his claim. Christian

370

MARY BAKER EDDY

Science is not final. After it has lived its day, another
religion will follow, and that is the Religion of Common-
sense, the esoteric religion which Mrs. Eddy herself
lived and practised.

As for her believers, she gave them the religion of a
Book — two Books, the Bible and ** Science and Health.**
They want form and ritual and temples.
She gave them these things, just as doctors give sweet-
ened water to people who still demand medicine; and
as if to supply the zealous converts, just out of ortho-
doxy, their fill of ecclesiastic husks, she built fine
churches — churches rivaling the far-famed San Salute
of Venice. Let them have their wish! Paganism is in
their blood — they are even trying to worship her!
^ Let them go on and eventually they will pray not
in temples nor on this or that mountain, but in spirit
and in truth, just as did Mrs. Eddy, one of the world's
most successful women.

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MARY BAKER EDDY

HRISTIAN SCIENCE is orthodox Christi-
anity, minus medical fetish and the fear that
a belief in sin, sickness, death and eternal
punishment naturally lends, plus the joy of
a natural, healthy, human life. The so-called rational
Christian sects preserve their Devil in the form of a
Doctor, and Hell in the shape of a Hospital.
My hope and expectation is that Christian Science will
become a Rational Religion instead of a one-man
institution, or a religion of authority, such as it now is.
Its superstitious features have doubtless been strong
factors in its rapid growth — serving as stays or stocks
to aid in the launching.

But now, the sooner the ship floats free the better.
Christian Scientists, being men and women, can not
continue to grow if fettered with an Index Expurga-
torius and mandatory edicts and encyclicals. That which
binds and manacles must go — the good will remain 58
Christian Science brings good news, and good news is
always curative. Mrs. Eddy animated her patients with
a new thought — the thought of harmony, the denial of
disease, and the affirmation that God is good and life
is beautiful. The animation thus produced is in itself
the most powerful healing principle known to science.
Life is born of love. Joy is a prophylactic. Christian
Science comes to the ** student ** as a great flood of
light. His circulation becomes normal, his muscles
relax, the nerves rest, digestion acts, elimination takes
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MARY BAKER EDDY

place — and the person is well. ^ Fear has congested the
organs — love, hope and faith place them in an attitude
so Nature plays through them. The patient is healed.
In it there is neither mystery nor miracle. It is all very
simple 33 53

Let us rid ourselves of a belief in the strange and occult!
The Christian Science organization is an expediency.
It is an intellectual crutch. The book is a necessity. It
is a scaffolding. Yet he who mistakes the scaffolding for
the edifice is a specialist in scaffolding.
Truth can never be caught and crystallized in a formula.
Also this: truth can never be monopolized by an ** ite *'
or an ** ist.** Eventually the label will be eliminated
with the scaffolding, and the lumber of ritual and rite
will have to go.

We will live truth instead of talking about it. Among
Christian Scientists there are no drunkards, paupers or
gamblers. Also, there are no sick people. To them sick-
ness is a disgrace.

Orthodox Christians get sick and gratify their sense of
approbation by receiving pastoral calls and visits from
the doctor and neighbors. The biblical injunction to
visit the sick was never followed by Mrs. Eddy — she
always decided for herself just what injunctions should
be waived and what followed.

Those which she did not like she interpreted spiritually
or else glided over. The biblical statement that man's
days are few and full of trouble, and also the assertion

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MARY BAKER EDDY

that man is prone to wickedness as the sparks fly up-
wards, are both very conveniently glossed.
Christian Scientists know the rules of health, just as
most people do; but what is more, they follow them,
thus avoiding the disgrace of being pointed out. They
have made sickness not only tabu, but invalidism ridic-
ulous 53 53

When things become absurd and preposterous, we
abandon them. Unpopularity can do what logic is help-
less to bring about. The reasoning of Christian Scientists
is bad, but their intuitions are right.
While denying the existence of matter, no people on
earth are as canny, save possibly the Quakers. A bank-
balance to a Christian Scientist is no barren ideality.
It is like falsehood to a Jesuit — a very present help in
time of trouble. Sin, to them, consists in making too
much fuss about life and talking about death. Do what
you want and forget it. Quit talking about the weather,
night air, miasma.

Knowingly or unknowingly Christian Scientists culti-
vate resiliency. They are proof against drafts and mi-
crobes. Eat what you like, but not too much of it. Be
moderate. Christian Scientists get their joy out of
their work. This is essentially hygienic. They breathe
deeply, eat moderately, bathe plentifully, work indus-
triously— and smile. This is all sternly scientific. It can
never be argued down.

No school of medicine has ever offered a prophylactic
374

MARY BAKER EDDY

equal to work and good-cheer, and no system of religion
has ever offered a working formula for health, happiness
and success equal to that launched by Mrs. Eddy. The
science of medicine is a science of palliation, fl Christian
Scientists avoid the cause of sickness, and thus keep
well 53 58

There is no vitality in drugs. Nature cures — obey her.
In this matter of bodily health just a few plain rules
suffice. And these rules, fairly followed, soon grow into
a pleasurable habit. Fortunately, we do not have to
oversee our digestion, our circulation, the work of the
millions of pores that form the skin, or the action of
the nerves. Folks who get fussy about their digestion
and assume personal charge of their nerves have
** nerves " and are apt to have no digestion.
** I have a pain in my side,'* said the woman who had
no money to the busy doctor. ** Forget it," was the
curt advice. Get the Health Habit, and forget it.
This is the quintessence of Christian Science. Your
mental attitude controls your body. Happiness is your
health. There is no devil but fear. As a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he.

375

./

so HERE ENDETH "LirTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES
OF GREAT TEACHERS" BEING VOLUME TEN OF
THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED
AND ARRANGED BY JOHN T. HOYLE; TYPOGRAPHY
BY CHARLES J. ROSEN AND AXEL EDWARD SAHLIN;
PRESSWORK BY JOHN HALL AND PETER ZIMMER;
BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS AND
BINDING BY CHARLES YOUNGERS ^ PRODUCED BY
THE ROYCROFTERS. THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN
EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXVI.

Date Due

All library items are subject to recall 3 weeks from
the original date stamped.

Brigham Young University

JUL J 1 'IWW

JU . ? 6 2000

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